A Comet Pulled From Orbit
by writingtoreachyou
Summary: As Elliot lifts his weapon and takes aim, Olivia's gut reaction changes the course of fate for all of them. Both detectives have been keeping secrets, but will they come light now her recovery looks more complicated than first feared? Set in the aftermath of the precinct shooting in Smoked, season 12.
1. Radio Silence

There is so often a temptation to wish for total and complete oblivion, a fresh start, a clean page, a chance to do life over, to do things differently. Life brings even the strongest souls, the most courageous of hearts to their knees in its darkest moments. In the split of a second, the blink of an eye, when something from down deep within us rises up and takes over our body, our mind and our actions. Heart over our head, out of our mind over matter, one gut reaction changes the course of our future completely. Have there ever been moments where we had wished to forget all the pain, the suffering, the past imperfect? Had we ever considered what that dream imagined would look like as a reality played out?

* * *

"Are you next of kin?"

"We're…." stepping forward, then back, then turning to the men flanking him at either side Donald Cragen took a breath. "We are here for her."

"We're family."

"What he said…." echoed Odafin Tutuola, taken aback but heartened by the ferocity of Stabler's words.

He had underestimated Elliot's ability to step up, and it was some small comfort in the devastation of that moment that he had done so for her, now, when she needed it most. When she needed him most, just as she had done hours earlier for him. For those with eyes to see there had been a shift since Olivia had lost Calvin. That which he had believed would lay dormant forever between his fellow detectives had sparked, small and subtle, fragile in the way it flickered and shone only in the shadows. He hadn't said anything, he never would; he cared about her too much for that. Whatever else he thought and felt about it all, the love between Elliot and Olivia was clear for all to see. For those there in the prescient earlier that day that clarity had become beautiful tragedy.

"She's stable, for now." Said the doctor, a little reticent on seeing their belted shields, their demeanour, and the way all three of them looked as though they too could benefit from medical attention. Their obvious distress and concern for his patient however was self-evident, and so he continued slowly, "The bullet was to the shoulder, in and out, there won't be any lasting damage as far as we can tell and she'll be out of surgery shortly."

"But she hit her head, right?" asked Elliot, having heard the chilling thud of blunt force trauma to human skull as Olivia had thrown herself at him with the full force of nature and hit her head on both the desk and concrete floor on her way down. His stomach rolled and he fisted his hands, clenching against rising nausea.

"Yes and this is what is currently giving us the greatest cause for concern. We are monitoring her closely throughout surgery, and will continue to do so once she's back in the ICU. Please be assured we are doing everything we can at this stage, but in cases of potential traumatic brain injury there are no certainties and often things change from hour to hour. We will be sure to keep you…." looking between the three men the doctor paused a beat, "… all… updated."

* * *

"She knew me that well. She knew what I was gonna do, how I'd react…." clasping and unclasping his hands, Elliot sat with his elbows on his knees hunched and broken, "….even before I did."

"Elliot you have _got_ to stop beating yourself about things that you couldn't possibly have seen coming, and that you have no power to change now. That's not where she needs your focus to be."

"You don't understand Cap."

"Understand what? That this isn't the first time Benson has put herself between you and disaster? That she threw herself heart first and headlong into danger to save you and now the guilt is tearing you apart inside? I understand Stabler. Liv isn't the only one who knows you pretty damn well at this point."

"I almost shot a teenager girl today. I discharged my weapon."

"You did what any cop would've done in that situation. Her age and her state of mind make it terrible and awful but you saw her aim her gun, finger on trigger, having watched her shoot multiple casualties moments earlier. You did what any cop would've done in that situation Stabler."

"I appreciate you saying that, Cap, but I think we both know that's not true."

"Olivia meanwhile….." finding careful, deliberate words, Cragen took his time as he sat beside the younger man, "…. what she did was less by the book. How she reacted? That wasn't her cop instinct."

"I…"

"But you can't change that now either, Elliot. All you can do is be there for her, pray that she gets through this and help her get back on her feet when she does."

"When she does." Said Stabler, attempting defiance.

"Hey, anything?" asked Cragen, as Detective Tutuola returned from a reconnaissance walk.

"No, still waiting."

"Say I was thinking…." said Fin, grabbing a plastic chair and slumping into it beside them, "…. she _does_ have next of kin right?"

"What? Simon?" scoffed Elliot bitterly. "You think we're gonna let them call that waste of space right now?"

"That isn't our choice to make Stabler." Cut Cragen quickly, naturally taking charge as though they were still in the squad room.

"Like hell it isn't, we're not doing it."

"Because _you_ say so?" challenged Fin, his shoulders squaring and his eyes narrowing sceptically. "What gives you the right to make that decision?"

"I…." blue eyes screaming, the veins rose in Elliot's neck and there were a thousand knives choking in his throat holding back the words he couldn't say.

"We'll wait for her to get out of surgery…." said Cragen steadily, "… and then we'll go from there."

* * *

"What? What is it? Don't just look at me like that, like you…"

"I just spoke with the doctor, she's awake…."

"Wait you spoke to him already? Why didn't you come get me?" clambering to his feet from where he had been sat slumped against the railing outside the hospital Elliot struggled to stand tall.

"What's that?"

"Nothing, it's….." thrusting a small velvet box deep into the pocket Elliot chocked off tears and sniffed staunchly, "So? She's okay, right? I can go see her?"

"The surgery went fine, by the book, her shoulder will be good as new."

"Cap what aren't you telling me?" twitching, unable to maintain equilibrium without knowing she would survive this Elliot's face pleaded with Cragen for the truth.

"She doesn't remember Elliot."

"You mean what happened?" he rasped, swallowing slowly, a little breathless. "Like she's blacked out today? The shooting?"

"Elliot…." grabbing for his arm Cragen felt the need to centre him, ground him, physically if nothing else, "… take a breath. Breathe."

"What doesn't she remember?" he asked, but he needn't have. The answer was written all over his boss' face.

"Anything, any of it, all of it: not yet at least. They're calling it post-traumatic amnesia from the force of impact. Right now she doesn't even remember her own name."


	2. From Scratch Begin Again

"Who are you?"

"I'm Don…." he said gruffly, cursing himself for not being able to better arrange his face to cushion her reality, "…I'm your friend."

"My friend?" turning awkwardly, reaching to her bedside table with her good arm not in sling Olivia lifted her glass. Sucking sceptically on the straw she swallowed a sip of water with a quenching gulp. Her mouth was dry, like the desert of her mind. Tumbleweed. "You've been here for days. That's some friend."

"I've known you a long time Olivia."

"Right…." pursed lips, she lowered caged eyes and stared into her glass of water uncomfortably.

"Years, a lot of years. We go back a long way, is what I'm saying. I just wanted to…." he had never been an eloquent man in the face of emotional distress, at least not without being able to hide behind his shield. Not when he felt all the things he felt in that moment. He couldn't find words, any words. "I wanted to be here. For you; now, in this."

"I'm not even sure I understand what this is Don. I mean you're here, with me, in this hospital room. I know they just patched up my shoulder from a bullet wound and I know I hit my head. They tell me my name is Olivia."

"It is, that's your name. You were in a….." catching himself, seeing her suddenly so painfully vulnerable, newborn and exposed, he sighed, "… you were in an accident. You're Olivia Benson, that's who you are."

"I'm gonna have to take all of your word for it on my name…." setting her glass down, biting her lip Olivia looked to the window and shook her head steadily side to side, "… but I haven't the first clue who I am."

"Would you like me to leave?" he asked, reverently, moving to get to his feet.

"I don't know?" she laughed, a shallow empty little laugh that faded breathlessly. She turned to him, brown eyes wide and terrified. "You seem like a nice man. I can tell you mean well."

"You've always had a solid gut."

"I have?" she whispered, and her eyes felt the hot prick of tears. She looked away, blinking defiantly. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course, of course…."

"The doctors, that therapist, they didn't mention anyone out there. Is there? Anyone out there, I mean?"

"Out there?" said Cragen, buying himself a moment. "Well, there's Fin sat in the visitor's room. He hasn't left since you were brought in here. He's a good friend."

"Fin, right…." she said blankly. Pushing a curtain of hair from her face, she tucked it behind her ears and forced a smile.

"And Elliot is also here, somewhere, he just stepped away. He's your partner."

"My…."

"Work! Work partner, you work together. Closely, together. He's…."

"Let me guess…." it was so strange to him, how like herself she could be while being entirely elsewhere, "… another friend?"

"Ehrm…." hesitating, deliberately avoiding her eyes, Cragen strained, "… yes, yeah another friend."

"So I had surgery on a bullet wound two days ago. I hit my head hard enough to knock out just about everything I ever knew at least a day before that. I've seen a doctor, two doctors, and a therapist and now I'm sat in here with you. Don: my friend. Out there is Fin and Elliot, my friends."

"Your friends."

"I don't have any family, do I Don?"

"I…." at a glance the same strong, beautiful woman she had always been, in Cragen's eyes in that moment she was a lost little girl. He hated himself for seeing her that way, apologising to her in his mind, and yet felt unable to feel anything but paternal and responsible.

"I hope to God you're not an actor or a diplomat because you are a terrible one if you are."

"I'm a cop."

"Oh…." her delicate cupid's bow dipped, and her lips formed a teary circle.

"Look, I'm gonna level with you here Liv. They were very specific about how this was supposed to go. The docs, they're worried about you. They said things are still, you know, fragile. You're fragile still. I'm not supposed to overwhelm you."

"Is that right?" she scoffed lightly. "You really want to level with me? Tell me honestly are we really friends? Or are you just some cop with a guilt complex over how I wound up in here? Am I part of your case? Is any of what you just told me even true?"

"All of it."

"I think I'm ready for you to go now…." she said, the jarring awareness that it was impossible to tell truth from fiction and she had absolutely no frame of reference becoming too much. "If you don't mind?"

* * *

"I could've killed Jenna."

"But you didn't."

"I could've gotten Liv…."

"But you _didn't_ Stabler."

"This you being nice to me Tutuola?" asked Elliot, laughing grimly and taking a long slurp of tar black coffee.

"Nah, nah this is me wishing you'd stop making my ears bleed. I'm trying to put a sock in you and your neurosis."

"Neurosis?"

"You never struck me as an over-thinker before. Don't start now; it's not a good colour on you. Hell if any of us will ever know whether or not you would've pulled the trigger with that gun pointed at Jenna. So what if you had? She was about to open fire again, she had form, ask Sister Peg. Yeah she's a messed up kid but that doesn't mean you can just walk into a cop precinct packing and start firing vigilante justice."

"She lost her mother…"

"We've all lost people…." said Fin quietly, shrugging his shoulders, "… doesn't excuse it. Explains it, maybe, where her head was at. Doesn't mean you weren't doing the right thing taking aim. Besides, you didn't shoot her. She's shaken, she's still messed up, but she's alive."

"Yeah."

"And so is Liv."

"She threw herself at my loaded weapon without a second thought."

"For the first time?" asked Fin drily.

"Huh?" puzzled Elliot, turning his head to meet Fin's black eyed stare. "What'd you say?"

"I said…." hesitating, then deciding if he didn't ask now he never would Fin dared, "… was that the first time Liv has thrown herself at your loaded weapon without engaging her brain first?"

"You son of a bitch Tutuola!" gasped Elliot, throwing himself to his feet and balling his firsts. "I can't believe you have the fucking nerve to…"

"Am I wrong?" challenged Fin unflinchingly.

"You need to show little more respect talking about Liv like that…." growled Elliot, squaring broad shoulders and showing his feathers protectively. "She's a damn class act and she deserves better from you."

"I apologise…." said Fin plainly, lifting his palms in a sincere show of conciliation, "… truly, man. You're right."

"What happens now Fin?" sitting back down, sinking slowly into the chair and throwing his head back Elliot exhaled a long sigh. Leaning the crown of his head against the wall he stared up at the florescent tube lights on the hospital ceiling.

"Honestly?" came the slow reply, as Fin shook his head sadly. "I dunno."

"Cragen says she doesn't remember anything. Anything. You realise what that means?"

"Childhood, her mom, SVU and all that means. It's ironic, right?" breathing shallow Fin shorted grimly. "How many times I've thought to myself _God_ if I could just erase Sealview for her. If I could just make is so she just completely forgot ever having cared so much for that Arliss kid."

"And now it's all gone. All the pain, all the hurt, all the torture of where she came from and the crap she's been through…." turning away Elliot sniffed stoically. This was not usual for the two men, to talk this way. She had brought them together in the most unlikely circumstance.

"For now it is, but they said this shit could be temporary. A week, a month, maybe even a year. I mean they keep telling us to go steady. We've not got to overwhelm her, to flood her with memories and just let her take it slow. How slow? I mean sure she doesn't remember all that bad stuff but she doesn't remember any of the good either."

"I know…." and there was going to be so much more good, it had been almost in reaching distance thought Elliot sadly, he could have almost touched it.

* * *

"Hey? I see you lurking…."

"Who me?"

"No, no the other guy who's been wearing out the linoleum outside my door the past hour."

"I'm Elliot…." he smiled, wide, honest, with a full show of teeth and a sighing laugh of relief. She might not remember but she was still Benson.

"I'm Olivia…." twisting the corners of her mouth, she shrugged her good shoulder and added, "… or so they tell me."

"Can I come in?"

"Sure, sure why not. You're cuter than the last guy who came visiting."

"Cuter huh?" he wanted to flirt back, it was in his veins, it felt so natural to catch the ball and throw it right back to her. He couldn't though, because looking at her he realised for the first time that she wasn't looking back. That perfect mirror image they had come to be was gone. He was a stranger to her.

"I'm sorry, I didn't…." all too quickly the banter, the bravado, fell away and she seemed small to him for the first time since he'd known her, "… it's hard to know how to…."

"It's okay."

"Not really….." she said quietly, watching him as he took a seat gingerly beside her bed, "… not really it isn't. Is it?"

"You really don't remember anything?" he asked, and she stared at him. The piercing blue of his eyes burned straight through her skin. The broad stretch of his muscular shoulders, and the tense way he held himself lifted the hairs at the nape of her neck. His body was inclined to hers, and he leant his elbows on the bed presumptuously: urgently. "Nothing at all?"

"I…." she gasped, the breath leaving her lungs so quickly it roared in her ears.

"I'm sorry, God, so sorry. I'm being way too….." grabbing for her hand, and then dropping it suddenly as though it was hot to touch he staggered backwards. He couldn't do this, it was too much. Turning to leave he muttered, "I'm really sorry Liv I can't…."

"Wait?" she swallowed, her mouth open slightly and her breath a shaky pant. "Elliot? Right?"

"Stabler, Elliot Stabler."

"He _did_ lie to me."

"Who did?" his heart was thundering and the blood rushing to his head.

They had to be careful. They had been drilled so carefully in how not to overwhelm her, how to be sensitive to the brain injury, how to facilitate memories organically. He cared so little for all of that now, because the way she was looking at him in that moment was nothing to do with her brain. It was muscle memory; it was hungry, and visceral and undeniable. It wasn't thought: it was felt.

"We're not friends….." she whispered hoarsely, her brown eyes pooling with unspeakable feeling, "…. are we?"

"It's….." chewing at the inside of his cheek, tasting the metallic regret of his cowardice Elliot grunted, "… complicated."

"Is it?" she asked, searching his face. "Because it doesn't feel that way. I don't remember who I am or how I got here, or whether to believe a single thing anyone who walks into this room says. I'm trying to piece together a whole life and everything about that is complicated. I'm in this all alone and I'm scared to death."

"Hey…."

"But the way you're looking at me right now?" finding a shy smile, stepping out onto the ledge she held her breath. "The way that it makes me feel?"

"Liv…."

"It doesn't feel so complicated Stabler, Elliot Stabler."

There was something exquisite, breath taking, in the way she allowed herself to be vulnerable. Blindfolded, feeling in the dark with fingertips tracing tantalizing memories held between heartbeats. He walked slowly back toward the bed, collapsed down into the chair and laid his hand out on the bed beside her, palm up and inviting.

"You always did have more courage than was good for you."

"You mean I shouldn't trust you? Everyone's a stranger, I have to trust someone."

"I'm not a stranger….." he choked, his hand still outstretched as his eyes met hers, "… I'm your friend. I promise you; I swear to God, you can trust me."

" _Just_ my friend?" she asked, lifting her hand slightly, uncurling her fingers and playing them nervously on an invisible set of chords.

There were a million things he could've said, that he wanted to say. To fast forward, to move to the ending, to where they had come so close to being only a few days earlier. It felt to him, to his shattered heart, that they were right back at the start and beyond that. She remembered nothing: nothing at all. The magnitude of that was only just beginning to dawn on him. He couldn't pretend that everything was as it was. He wanted her so badly; he wanted them to be together so badly, but not like this.

"Yes, no, I…." tilting his head, softening his pained expression Elliot added gently, "… if you'll let me be? For now at least?"

"Okay." she said simply, because somehow she trusted him. It felt like the right thing. Moving her hand over his she felt her throat flush as his fingers closed around hers.

"You're not alone, Liv."


	3. Come Back, I Still Need You

"You okay?"

"I'm fine, stop treating me like an invalid."

"You know you're pretty snippy for someone who…."

"Who what?" brown eyes shot up to meet his in challenge and Olivia curled her lip, "Someone who what?"

"Never mind….." conceded Elliot, not even knowing where to begin.

They walked again in silence for a while, lost in their own thoughts but comfortable in each other's presence. What he had failed to say was that for someone entirely oblivious to themselves, to the depths and intricacies of the relationships she held with those around her Olivia was managing to maintain a startling level of composure. He wanted to tell her how mesmerised he was by her, how her courage and strength dazzled him. It always had.

"I'm sorry."

"Huh?"

"You heard…." she said, waiting for him to meet her gaze before gifting him a wry smile. She had given an inch, and she wasn't for budging a breath further. He could meet her halfway.

"No I'm sorry, Liv. Sometimes I forget. It's easy to forget, I mean. You sound just the same…." she paused for a moment, staring up at him as his blue eyes caught her gaze and held it, "… you look just the same."

And she did, she was every bit as beautiful as ever. She radiated just the same warmth of spirit and inflection of voice. Sweet as molasses but sharp of wit, a tonic for any lost soul, a little guarded, a little wary, but endlessly giving. He wondered whether that was her only saving grace now, that her heart, her giant heart had always beat on the outside. However caged she had become, no matter how many protective layers she had developed, whatever walls she had carefully constructed for survival she had never hardened completely. Her edges were still round, her eyes soft; still so capable of love.

She looked tired still, even though she was physically almost entirely healed. She was still having physiotherapy to gain back full mobility in her arm, but it would regain full and normal function in time. They had reduced her check ins and therapy sessions to once daily and although these would be ongoing there was talk of reintroducing her to her own apartment, and slowly, to her life.

To look at now you wouldn't really tell that anything had changed. She looked like off duty Olivia. Blue jeans, a baggy loose knit sweater and her hair desperately trying to escape it's tie. The way it fell in her face framed those eyes, those cheekbones: that enduring smile.

"Liv, huh?" she nodded, pushing out her bottom lip and pondering this show of hand. Did everyone call her that or just him?

"How're you doing? Really?" he was holding something back. Everyone was holding back, they had all carefully formed a dam against the tide of her memories, against the life that was hers to hold if she could only reach out far enough to wrap her fingers around it. "Olivia?"

"Yes, sorry: I was miles away."

"Yeah…." he swallowed, biting on his cheek and turning away. Exhaling air in a sharp, rallying blow through pursed lips he shoved the box lid a little tighter on. Don't flinch, Stabler.

"Elliot?" she whispered to his back, her voice breaking slightly.

"Yuh?" he replied, refusing to turn. He couldn't look at her, he couldn't do this, it was too hard.

"Can I be really….." taking a steading breath, she continued, "… brutally honest with you?"

"I…."

"This is a nightmare."

"Huh?" he wasn't really asking a question, just making a noise as he yielded and turned to face her. The look on her face broke his heart all over again.

"I'm not being figurative. Have you ever had one of those nightmares? Where you're looking for something and you can't find it? Where you're so close, you're so painfully close to knowing whatever it is you're supposed to know. You're walking so fast, you're running so hard but no matter how hard you try you can't quite get to wherever it is that you're supposed to go."

"Yeah, yeah I've had those dreams."

"That's now I feel. Every day. All the time. I can feel it in what the doctors aren't saying. I can see it in all of your faces when you look at me…." rounding her shoulders she shrugged them down helpless, "… and the person I'm supposed to be isn't looking back. It's a constant disappointment to you all."

"No, no that isn't….."

"I know you've all been given your instructions. I know you're banned from just telling me all the things I'm supposed to know. How does that help me? How does it help me to have you all staring at me through the empty holes, the Swiss cheese of my brain when you could so easily just fill them in? Fill in the blanks."

"I can't, I'm sorry….." tight, fighting it all, Elliot shook his head slowly from side to side. For so many reasons, he couldn't give her what she thought she wanted, not then.

"You know it occurs to me that if I was happily married, three kids, a house in Connecticut with a white picket fence and a SUV then you wouldn't look so uncomfortable right now."

"I'm not, no, I'm not uncomfortable."

"You look like you're about to rupture something…." she shot back, without pausing a beat, and gesturing to the risen vein in his neck.

The intensity shattered as, despite how serious he was taking himself and everything around him in that moment Elliot spluttered a laugh. She was still in there somewhere, bubbling beneath the surface.

"Good to know you're still hilarious as ever, Benson. Still riding my ass any chance you get."

"Always…." she heard herself say, it surprised her, like an involuntary hiccough. Furrowing her brow slightly, she tilted her head and then looked at him curiously, "Is that true?"

"I sure hope so…." he smiled, wide and familiar.

"Okay fine, fine if you won't tell me about me and my life. What about you? Who _are you_ Elliot Stabler?"

"That's a good question."

"So?" folding her arms, she wasn't easily dissuaded. As they began to walk again, side by side, she pushed, "You're married, right? I saw the ring."

"You did, huh Detective?" he chuckled sadly, then saw her eyes widen. "Oh come on, you already knew we're cops. I know Fin already told you that much. He's a terrible liar."

"He told me you have five kids as well, that's impressive."

"I'm Catholic."

"Sure…." she said, feeling suddenly more awkward than she expected to, "…. okay, well, no judgement there." It was a strange response from him, she thought.

"I didn't mean that to sound like I'm not thankful. I love my kids."

"Of course."

"I just sometimes can't help but wonder how things might've gone, you know. If I'd, well, not been such a good Catholic."

"I don't think I know what you're talking about now…." she tested, treading carefully, "… but I'm not sure it's anything to do with me."

"Well…."

"It's none of my business…." she cut in quickly, unsure as to why she felt such a sudden rising panic at whatever he was about to say, "… was all I meant."

"Right, yeah, obviously."

"Why, what were you about to say?" she heard herself ask, before she lost the nerve.

"Nothing, nothing at all."

"Liar…" she challenged, and then held her nerve in the silence that followed.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this, Liv."

"What wasn't?"

"I guess I can tell you whatever I like about me. No doctor's orders on that. Besides, I suppose it doesn't matter so much now anyway…."

"What doesn't?"

"I'm still wearing the ring but my marriage is over. It's just a piece of metal now. What it used to represent is gone already. It was over a long, long time ago but I was just too blind and stupid and pig headed to admit it. I've wasted so much time, and then when I finally grew the balls to…."

"You okay?"

"When I told you just now that I'd had one of those dreams I meant it. I've been living that same nightmare. Looking for something I couldn't find, getting so damn close but not quite being able to touch it. Not having the nerve, not daring to jump. I was running too, just in the wrong direction. Living in denial. Then I finally got within _touching_ distance and I realised what I'd been looking for had been right there all along. At my side for years. Annoying the hell out of me."

"Elliot…."

"And then I was right about to reach out and it just disappeared….." breathless, winded, he locked her gaze on his, "… she disappeared."

"Who was she…" whispered Olivia, but her answer was in his eyes, "… who is she?"

"No one….." he sighed, hopelessly, closing his eyes and adding softly, "… she's gone now."

"But she might come back, right?" grabbing for his jacket cuff, then moving her hand down until it slid easily into his she squeeze her fingers lightly.

"Maybe…." he choked.

"So don't give up on her, okay?" voice rasping, Olivia's eyes pricked with tears that felt hot and raw and real and connected her with something that felt like hope. "Promise me?"

"I promise."


	4. New Light Through Old Windows

" _My mother was an English professor. When I was sixteen, I started dating one of her students. He was a senior, he was twenty-one years old. And he asked me to marry him. And I said yes. Because I wanted to get away from my mother. She found out and she told me that if I didn't stop seeing him, that she would have him kicked out of college. And I told her that I was moving out. She was half way through a bottle of vodka and she dropped it. It shattered all over the floor. And then she picked up the jagged edge of the bottle and...and she came at me, screaming, 'I'll never let anyone else have you.' And so I kicked her, hard. And then I kicked her again. And she went flying across the room, into the wall. And she slid down to the floor. I'd never hurt her before. I ran out. I was so afraid..."_

"Olivia?"

"Sorry."

"Can you talk to me about where you were just then?" said Terri Wyatt, her hands folded carefully in her lap.

She had kind eyes, thought Olivia as she drifted back to reality. That was the first thing she had noticed about her when she was assigned her as a therapist. Those things mattered, she thought, in situations like this. She felt so vulnerable, so lost and alone. To know who to trust, to believe in relationships when you couldn't remember their depth was so hard. There was no context. Yet somehow she trusted Terri, and that was everything in a world where she suddenly had nothing.

"It's hard to…."

"Try?" asked Terri, having waited a few moments for Olivia to continue. "Say something you saw, describe something you felt. Anything, however small. They're memories, Olivia, you know that right?"

"I'm afraid."

"And that's totally understandable. This is scary, truly terrifying, all of it. I get that, believe me, please trust that I know just how hard this is for you. You don't have to dig so very deep, but would you at least just try and scratch the surface with me while it's still fresh? Wherever you were just now?"

"My mother."

"Good…." nodded Terri warmly, unfolding her hands, leaning forward in a gesture of encouragement and support. "What about her?"

"I'm not sure…." furrowing her brow, hair falling into her face, Olivia looked down and murmured, "… but it's complicated. I feel that."

"Breathe, breathe for me? Just breathe through it."

"It's loud and it's angry and there's screaming and….." gasping lightly, catching herself Olivia lifted her eyes to Terri and choked, "… it's violent."

"You can stop there if you want, it's okay."

"I don't remember details. I can't picture her face or who she is. It's just a feeling, an awareness. It comes and goes and I don't really know how to describe it other than it makes me feel on edge, nervous. I know I'm remembering my mother…." eyes filling with tears, finally letting the emotion take hold Olivia added shakily, "… but I don't feel safe."

"This is a big deal, Olivia. It's hard, it's incredibly hard, but it's a foundation stone. It's the start of you starting to piece things back together."

"Am I allowed to ask you questions?" sniffing staunchly, composing herself and carefully replacing the shutters Olivia pushed her hair back behind her ear and off her face.

"Sure, sure absolutely. I can't always promise to be able to answer but go right ahead."

"My mother's dead isn't she?"

"Yes, yes she is I'm so sorry."

"And my father?"

"I believe so."

"And I have a brother, a half-brother, right? Did anyone call him?" dabbing at the corners of her eyes, attempting a veil of indifference Olivia was acutely aware of just how pitiful she sounded.

"They did, yes, they did. He was just unfortunately not able to come and join us here at this time."

"Right…." said Olivia, not entirely sure how she ought to feel at this. In reality she was indifferent, but it was impossible to tell whether that was an accurate reflection of her relationship with this man.

"Olivia before we wrap up for today's session I wanted to talk to you about discharge. The doctors think you're ready and I'm happy to sign off on that as long as we continue our sessions on an outpatient basis, and I'm satisfied that you have an adequate support plan in place."

"Okay, well, that sounds good."

"We need to hold one last session with you, however. Dr Kwami and I want to sit down with you, and we'd really like it if you could choose someone to have with you at that meeting."

"Someone to have with me?" she echoed, frowning confused. "Why?"

"There are just some final things we need to talk about before we can discharge you from the hospital. They cross both the medical and the therapy care pathways and we'd really just feel better knowing that you had someone there to support you."

"You're making it sound like bad news, Terri?"

"We'll talk on Tuesday. That's your proposed discharge date, right?"

"Yeah, yeah it is."

"You don't have to give me an answer now. Just bring someone with you. Have a think about it, no rush."

"I don't have anyone, Terri."

"That's just not true Olivia. I know it all feels so alien right now, all these people claiming pieces of you, engaging in relationships with you that you don't remember. You have good people around you here though, I've met them. All the people who've come to visit you at the hospital are friends. Is there really not one of them who you'd trust enough to be there for you? You've talked about gut instinct being your guidepost right now."

"Yeah….." managing a half smile, Olivia's brown eyes brightened for a flicker of a second. Terri smile back.

"You're thinking of someone right now, aren't you?"

* * *

"Long time no see…."

"Some of us are tryin' to hold down jobs over here….." grouched Fin, throwing his jacket down on the chair at the corner of Olivia's room and rolling his eyes with a smirk, "… someone's feeling better."

"How was it?" she asked, tearing the cellophane lid from a container of fruit chunks and prodding for a piece of pineapple with the plastic fork. "Work?"

"Same old same old, nothing I can't handle."

"Wow, well, I feel like I was right there with you…."

"You _are_ feeling better, giving me earache like old times. Hey, spear me a chunk of watermelon and I'll elaborate."

"You can have the whole thing if you tell me which precinct you work."

"Which precinct _we_ work…." he noted, unlikely to fall for her ploy, "… you ready for that story time? You get shrink sign off?"

"I've lost my memory not my mind Fin. Give me a break. Let me make at least _some_ judgement calls for myself? I'm old and ugly enough to decide what I can and can't handle."

"I dunno…." sighed Fin, twisting his face uneasily. She had always been near impossible to deny, and now was no different.

"Please?"

"16th precinct: SVU."

"SVU? That's….." hesitating a moment, she worked through the mental archives of her common knowledge and added, "….sex crimes, right?"

"Special Victims Unit, so yeah, amongst other lowlife behaviour that's about the gist of it. That's all you're getting out of me as far as you're concerned though. I've met your therapist; she doesn't look like she takes any prisoners."

"So come on then, tell me about your day. A job like that it's gotta take its toll. So take a load off…." grabbing one last piece of melon before handing him the rest of her snack box Olivia shrugged, "...tell me about it?"

* * *

"Everything okay?"

"I hope it's okay that I called you?"

"Liv I told you, call anytime. Day or night, you call and I'll come."

"What did I do to deserve you Elliot Stabler?" if he closed his eyes, just listened to her voice, then he could imagine things so differently. "Hey?"

"Sorry…." he murmured, reopening his eyes and seeing the look of genuine wonder on her face. She wasn't speaking figuratively. She was simply showing genuine curiosity.

"It's okay you don't really have to answer."

"I wish I could….." he sighed, sighing heavily and feeling suddenly unable to look at her, "… but the truth is that you don't deserve me. You deserve better, you always have."

"You know you're pretty hard on yourself…" she noted, sensing that there were a million layers of complexity tightly wound into this man. She could sense it in the way he radiated a constant tension, a buzzing of energy, a ticking bomb. "I mean I've only known you two weeks but I can see how much love you have to give."

"Only known me two weeks?" it broke his heart, in ways he had never known it break before. This was going to be harder than he had even begun to comprehend.

"I'm sorry, I…."

"Don't apologise."

"I guess it's easy for me to forget how hard this is for you guys. I've lost my memory….." she said softly, that familiar husk in her voice, "… but you've lost your friend."

"You said on the phone that the doctors wanted to meet with you?" he asked, making a necessary change of subject.

"Yes, yeah, they said there is a final conversation they need to have before they can discharge me. Fin has agreed to take me to my apartment and help me get settled in but apparently there's something they need to discuss first before they'll let me leave."

"Are you okay? Your shoulder, you feel better right?" he panicked, looking from her face to her shoulder and back again. "They said you were healing really well from surgery, right? They said that the amnesia stuff would just need the three weekly therapy sessions and monitoring and…"

"Wow, were you taking notes?" she marvelled, as he recited all she had told him of her prognosis verbatim.

"Ms Benson? Is now a good time?" asked the doctor, wrapping lightly on the door with his knuckles. "Can we come in?"

"Sure, of course…" nodded Olivia, sitting cross legged on her bed in her sweat pants and slouched jumper. Pulling the sleeves down over her fingers she was nervous, looking to her doctor and her therapist as they entered and then over to Elliot for reassurance.

"Elliot, good to see you again."

"They said I should have someone here…." said Olivia, wishing that she had had chance to finish explaining this to Elliot before they arrived, "… is that okay? That I called you?"

"Yes, yeah of course it is but…." his heart skipped a beat as he looked to the doctor, "… this isn't bad news is it? Why would she need someone here, doc?"

"I'm sorry, we didn't mean to be mysterious. Terri and I have been talking at length about how best to handle your care, Olivia. It's a complicated situation and one that can change on a daily basis. The human brain is unpredictable, and as we've discussed previously post-traumatic amnesia can vary in how long it holds affect. Sometimes patients can regain their full memories a few days after regaining consciousness and in others it can be much longer. We wanted to give you the maximum time possible, the greatest chance of doing so before we moved forward with your care plan."

"My care plan?"

"Everything that has previous been discussed still stands. Terri is happy to see you on an outpatient basis three times a week, more if you feel you need the extra support, less if you're making good progress. You will continue with your physiotherapy on the shoulder, and since your progress so far has been fantastic you should regain full mobility before too long."

"What aren't you telling me?" she said sharply, having developed an uncanny ability to sense when she was in the dark. She had learned to read people's expressions, hear it in their voices, judge when they were withholding information supposedly for her benefit.

"Olivia you're 16 weeks pregnant."

"Wh…." her mouth fell open and she failed to form the rest of the word. Brown eyes wide she stared at the doctor. Her memories were one thing, but how had she failed to sense something so physical within her body?

"We know this is a shock, and it only adds to the complexities of the amnesia and Terri will…."

On he talked, reassuring, calm, but she couldn't hear the words only the muted hum of dialogue. Her mind was elsewhere, in freefall. She felt helpless, completely powerless in a way that was both liberating and terrifying in equal measure. A stranger in a strange land, totally alone, and then suddenly not so alone anymore. She thought perhaps that she ought to feel something for the unborn child apparently within her, and yet somehow she couldn't manage any reaction at all. She was numb.

"Do you have any questions?" asked Terri. She was blonde, slight and somewhere in her mid-forties. She slid forward in her chair and leant closer to Olivia. "Are you okay?"

"No, no not really…." said Olivia with a flat detachment.

"You chose Elliot to be here with you, he's your partner at work right? You're good friends?"

"Apparently so."

"Elliot do you think that you might be able to work in a session with Olivia and I to talk about this new piece of information? Obviously this is an incredibly difficult situation for everyone and it would be really helpful if we could really define a support system for Olivia at this time."

"Mmmm….." nodded Elliot, his jaw wired shut as he sat welded to his chair in shock. Olivia's eyes settled on him, the glistening of perspiration on his forehead, that vein in his neck, his balled fists.

"Could you, uh, could you give us a moment? Terri? Doctor Kwami?" managed Olivia quietly, seeing his obvious distress.

"Of course, absolutely, we'll be right outside."

"I didn't know, Elliot. I swear to God."

"That you were pregnant?" he strained.

"That too….." she whispered, and his blue eyes went so wide she could've fallen into them and drowned.

"I….." the grey colour in Elliot's face went suddenly a wash white and holding a hand to his mouth he lurched for the door but only made it as far as the waste paper basket before launching the contents of his stomach violently into it.

"You okay?" asked Olivia, when he fell quiet.

"No, no not really…." he groaned, grimacing as he wiped his mouth on his shirt sleeve and leant against the wall.

"I'm not wrong am I?" she rasped, folding her arms defensively over her waist.

"How did you….." he began, but words failed him.

"So I _am_ right?" he hated that he'd given her the answer, but at the same time it brought some strange wash of relief. "It's yours?"

"We, ah, eh, we were…." he fumbled to form a sentence, before finally lifting his eyes to hers and imploring, "… look I need to go get some air or I'm gonna hurl again. I'm sorry."

"No, no of course…" she said, as the door clunked shut behind him.


	5. I Heard All Your Dreams Came True

"Stabler?"

"Casey…." he muttered, not lifting his eyes but knowing Casey Novak's voice.

"You're on the floor, there, Stabler." When he didn't respond she arched a thin brow and sighed, "You're on the floor of the parking lot next to the trash Stabler…."

"You're so annoying."

"And you look like a man in need of a drink….." she smiled, and he lifted his eyes to her sadly and relaxed his hunched body. As he did she caught sight of his bloodied knuckles and gasped, "Jesus! What does the other guy look like?"

"What?"

"Maybe you don't need a friend and a drink so much as legal counsel and the number of a good therapist!"

"I'm fine."

"The hell you are…." she sighed, tossing her purse down onto the curb side and crouching down to a seat beside him. Sitting in silence a moment she just waited until he knew she wasn't afraid of whatever he wasn't saying. "Look, Stabler, I know we've never exactly been bosom buddies but it doesn't take a shrink to work out that this must be hell for you."

"Humph."

"I've only visited twice and I'm ashamed to say I left early both times. What do you even say? I mean most things you're not _supposed_ to say it turns out. How are we just supposed to make polite chat with her like this is all completely normal? I mean she's forgotten more heartache and trauma than most people ever know in the first place."

"It's so good that you're here…." said Elliot quietly, turning to Casey with a small smile, "… for her. She needs good friends right now."

"And what about you?" she asked, seeing the pain in his eyes. It wasn't surprising to anyone that this would hit Elliot harder than the rest of them. The circumstances of the shooting, the fact that he and Olivia were so close as partners. She could see how tormented he was. "How're you bearing up?"

"I just want to help her, whatever that looks like."

"I think we're just supposed to keep talking to her, treat her as normal as we can until she starts to remember right?"

"Right…." he said stiffly.

"Elliot what is it?" for all his brooding enigmatic inscrutability he was fairly plain to read in that moment.

"Casey if I tell you something it goes no further, okay?" he said simply, and there was something in his blue eyes as they stared at her that was dangerously close to a threat. Yet she nodded slowly, because something in his face told her that if he didn't uncork the bottle it would explode.

"You have my word."

"She's pregnant."

"Wow."

"She's pregnant and it's mine."

"Oh holy….." mouthed Casey, her alabaster skin falling to a new white as her kohl lined eyes widened. Running a hand through her side bangs she took a moment to just sit with his revelation. She had a million questions, and yet couldn't manage to form adequate words to ask any of them.

"I mean I think it's mine. I assume. We've been seeing each other in secret for about six months now. It started slow, it started in a way that neither of us really noticed, it started…."

"It started twelve years ago….." tilting her head in challenge, her eyes were kind as she shrugged, "…. right?"

"It started the day I met her. I just didn't know it yet."

"Does she know it's yours? Does she remember who you are, who you are to her I mean. Does she know that you're partners in more than one sense of the word?"

"I don't…." for the first time she was witnessing Elliot Stabler on the verge of tears, and he turned his head away to hide it from her. His knuckles brushed against the arm of his shirt and left flecks of blood. The poor man was in pieces, thought Casey with profound sympathy.

"I'm not going anywhere Stabler. Take your time." Biting her lip, rolling her eyes, rolling up her sleeves she threw herself head first into the mess he had made. Reaching for his forearm she gave it a light squeeze, "I'm here. I am, for the record not without reservation and concern, on your side.

"Why?" he managed, because she had absolutely no obligation. "Why would you be?"

"I dunno, maybe I've just always pulled for the underdog. Why the hell else would anyone be ADA all those years?" she replied flippantly, but when he said nothing she shook her head and exhaled slowly. "Honestly? Maybe I've always had a soft spot for you Stabler."

"You hid it well…" he said drily, and she couldn't help but smile.

"You're hot-headed, reactive, pig headed and irritating as all heck but you've got a good heart. I don't know what's gone on between you and Liv behind the curtain but from what I've always seen it's been fairly plain that you love her more than anything. That's usually been the problem. And it's always you're Achilles heel."

"How do I explain it to her? All of it? Twelve years of history, everything that's gone on, all the water gone under all the bridges we've burned. She knows we're something, she can feel it. I know she can."

"Anyone with a beating heart can feel it just being in the same room as the pair of you. Your wife is either blind or stupid."

"Hey!"

"Sorry, that was cruel."

"She knows it's mine, at least she knows I think it is. Hurling into the trash after the doc told us gave me away."

"Classy as always, Stabler."

"I need her to keep it between us long enough for me to talk to Kathy and the kids. If Cragen finds out he won't let us be partners anymore. That job is her life, or it always has been. I can't let her ruin that without being able to think it through. I need to be able to talk to her about it all but…."

"I know, I see that. I get it."

"But if I tell her I want to keep it a secret then it's like I'm ashamed. Of us, of me and her, of the baby. And I'm not. Her having my kid?" he laughed, and then suddenly he cried. Ugly, wracking sobs that he bent in two to conceal, dropping his head between his knees and holding his head in his hands. "It's everything to me."

"Oh Elliot…." sighed Casey, reaching a hand across his back and pulling him into her, "… oh you beautiful idiot."

"I'd bought a ring."

"What?" frowning, wondering if she'd misheard Casey continued to hold him as he spoke muffed into her shoulder.

"Kathy and I are separated already. I was ready to file for divorce, I'd hired a lawyer. I was going to prove to Liv how serious I was about us. Finally, after all these years I was gonna grow a pair and give her the damn respect and relationship she deserved."

"Fuck…." mouthed Casey, as Elliot sat up and heaved a chocked sigh.

"It was all so perfect. Kath and the kids would be saved the indignity of my having had an affair. They never had to know. Even if she did deep down it wouldn't be public. She'd be spared that. And Liv and I would finally be able to be honest, to be open about what we meant to each other. I'd put my transfer papers in if Cragen needed me to, if we couldn't be partners anymore. It wouldn't matter, because we'd be making our life together, on our terms, finally."

"I don't know what to say Elliot."

"Now whatever move I make someone gets hurt. I claim that baby as mine and acknowledge what Liv really means to me then everyone knows it's been an affair. I hide it and she won't understand. She won't remember how complicated it is. She'll just think she doesn't mean enough to me for me to be honest. How can I do that to her? Now, with everything she's going through?"

"What do you want to do? Take Kathy out of it for a second, take your kids out of it. What does your gut say?"

"I can't take them out of it Casey. They're my family. This will devastate them."

"You know there's an argument to say you should've thought of that earlier."

"I guess I deserve that."

"You already know what you're gonna do Elliot. You knew before I sat down. You're just trying to force your head and your conscience to get on board. I'm guessing that's what took the skin off your knuckles. Like I said before, you're forty seven shades of fucked up but you've got a good heart…." smiling fondly Casey nodded with encouragement, "… and it belongs to Liv."

* * *

"I couldn't find you."

"I had to get out of there, it's…." sitting in the small, concrete garden to the rear of the hospital Olivia looked up at Elliot as he walked over to her, "… suffocating."

"I came to apologise, for leaving like that. You asked for me to be there and I was wrong, really wrong to just leave you after hearing, that, the news. Are you okay?"

"People keep asking me that. Maybe I should be the one asking you though, what happened?" she asked, gesturing to his bruised knuckles and bloodied shirt.

"Can I sit?" he asked, ignoring the question because it was just one more thing that he couldn't even begin to explain to her.

"I have go back in there soon, they're getting my discharge papers ready and Fin is coming to show me back to the apartment I apparently have."

"Casey's here too, we're all gonna help."

"Great…." she said mordantly, chewing on her cheek, "… a well-attended homecoming pity party for Amnesia Benson."

"There's not one of us here out of pity Liv I swear to God."

"Look I don't really know what we're doing here, right now. I mean the facts seem fairly evident to me. If this thing really is yours then from your reaction it's hardly welcome news. I can only assume that the marriage you talked about being over isn't quite that over. So if we were just an affair that I don't even remember then I think its best we just leave it that way, in the past."

"Liv…."

"Oh and don't worry about anyone finding out. Conveniently since I don't remember a damn thing about my life, it's hardly inconceivable that I just don't remember who the father is. Is it?"

"I…."

"You know what that was rhetorical. You don't have to say a thing. I'm done here."

"Olivia please just let me…" he entreated, but holding her hands up defensively in front of her Olivia shook her head quickly side to side and warned him off with dark eyes.

"I can't do this, this, whatever the hell this is. It's too much. I just need you to leave me alone…." she said tiredly, backing away from him, "… just let me breathe."

* * *

"I don't apparently care too much for stuff?"

"Huh?" asked Fin, extracting his head from the refrigerator in Olivia's apartment and waiting for her to repeat herself.

"I was just saying I'm either a serious minimalist or I really don't spend any time at all in this place. There's hardly any stuff. I mean sure there's furniture but where's the clutter? There isn't a single photograph in this whole place."

"I think it's very….." out of his comfort zone and not wanting to say the wrong thing Fin settled on, "… tasteful."

"Am I really that alone?" she had a detectives eye, and her observational shrewd was making it increasingly difficult for those around her. "Do I literally have no friends and family at all worth putting in a frame?" as Fin closed the refrigerator doors his stomach dropped to see the child's painting still magnetised there.

"Who's Calvin?" she asked, "Calvin Benson, we've got to be related right?"

"No, nah, he was….." sighing heavily, staring at her with a helpless apology Fin genuinely found himself unsure of what to say. "It's a long story."

"Let me guess?" she snapped cuttingly, "Another tragic part of my life you can't tell me about? Was there _anything_ good going for me? Is there even any point in me _trying_ to remember any of it?"

"Yes! God, Liv, yeah…" he said without thinking, and then hesitated.

"Or would I just be better off leaving whatever the hell you are all refusing to tell me in the past and starting fresh. It doesn't seem like there'd really be anyone who'd miss that version of me."

"Are you kidding me?" marvelled Fin, shaking his head with wide eyed disbelief. "Liv you can't even imagine."

"Don is my boss. Before the accident it had been six months since Casey and I had even touched base. Elliot…."

"Elliot Stabler is an asshole of the highest order….." cut in Fin, with a reluctant sigh, "… but he's not going out of his tiny mind right now out of indifference. He's in freefall because he can't function like a normal human being without you. Right or wrong you've always been his due north. That's how badly he misses you."

"He's got a strange way of showing it…." said Olivia, her hand unconsciously gravitating to her stomach and her palm spread curiously over the unborn child inside.

"Like I said, he's an asshole…." shrugged Fin, "…. but he's an asshole that needs his partner."

"Maybe."

"And you need him too…." unsure where their boundaries lay in this strange new world Fin added quietly, "… you know that. Even this you, knows that."

"I'm the same person….." the icy façade slipped, and a heart-breaking thaw pricked at her brown eyes as she folded her arms and swallowed, "… there's only one me."

"I didn't mean…."

"Sometimes it's like I died and I'm here at my own wake."

"You left me of that list of yours by the way. And as it goes, I'm kinda fond of the Liv you're getting ready to give up on."

* * *

"Hey."

"Hi."

"Is it okay that I came? I tried to call a hundred times but it wouldn't connect."

"I changed my number….." said Olivia, holding her front door so tight her knuckles were white, "… temporarily."

"Yeah?" asked Elliot, with nervous smile and curious eyebrow raised. "How come?"

"I kept getting calls and texts from people I didn't recognise. I guess I was scared to read what they had to say. I'll turn it on again in time I guess. Besides, this one annoying guy kept trying to reach me, called about a hundred times and….."

"Very funny, you're funny….." he smiled again, unable to resist her, his blue eyes dancing across her face, "… you know that?"

"I'm sorry for how I was at the hospital. I think I just had a little cabin fever. There aren't any guidelines on how to deal with all this and I'm not really doing so well."

"You're doing just fine. You're doing a hell of a lot better than most people would be."

"Well, anyway….." lifting the corners of her mouth reluctantly, she shrugged, "… apology accepted?"

"I'm sorry too, Liv. Violent nausea wasn't exactly the best reaction I could've had and I handled the whole situation terribly running out on you like that."

"I guess it was a shock for both of us." Pausing a moment, choosing her next words carefully Olivia sighed, "Look we don't have to talk about this now but we should soon. I have no idea what the right thing to do is but the longer this goes on the fewer options we have."

"How'd you mean?" he asked, moving his weight between feet uneasily.

"The pregnancy, this pregnancy. Assuming it _is_ yours, assuming this is our shared problem. We need to talk about how to fix it."

"Liv?" he swallowed, a little gasping, a little stunned. For the first time since the shooting he didn't recognise her.

"What?" she asked, not quite cold but equally not herself. The knife twisted further into his gut. "Why're you looking at me like that?"

"I just…."

"What?"

"I know it's complicated, I get that there are some things I need to deal with and there's a lot to figure out but…." taking a moment, forcing himself to remember and reminding himself that she couldn't Elliot drew in a long shaking breath. "Olivia this isn't a pregnancy to me, and I don't see it as a problem that needs fixing."

"It isn't?" she replied slowly, eyes poring over his anguished face. "You don't?"

"It's a baby, our baby….." he choked, "… and you want this. You have to believe me that you want this more than anything. I don't know if I'm supposed to say that. God you're right when you say there are no guidelines here. All I know is you. I **know** you Liv, and if you were yourself right now then we we'd be having a totally different conversation."

"But I'm not, am I?"


	6. Ties That Bind

**Just a quick note to say that there may be elements of this that are triggering to some people, as there are references and themes of sexual assault. I just wanted there to be a warning before you read on. Also thank you for the heads up on the Kathy spelling, I always imagined it with a C when watching and I think it just stuck with me as a force of habit - noted now though! Thank you so very much for all those taking time to leave reviews and comments, I have been out of writing for a while and so it is a massive help and encouragement to have that interaction and feedback from those reading.**

* * *

"This is a real mess, Elliot."

"I know."

"I'm so sorry, really I am, about what happened at the precinct. I know you've been going through hell. I don't underestimate what Olivia did for you stepping in front of your gun…" it was so like Kathy, he thought sadly, to be trying so hard to see this from the other woman's point of view. He hated himself for thinking it, now more than ever, but her tolerance and empathy always seemed so close to martyrdom.

"Kath we're too far into this to get out now so I'm just gonna have to keep going. It is a mess, it is, and I've made it. I know I have. I just haven't finished yet."

"There's more?" laughing bitterly Kathy rubbed her face. There were deep lines at her eyes, her skin was tired and her disposition jaded. He couldn't think about what part he had played in all of that right now. It was too much. "You tell me you're in love with your partner and you're leaving me to be with her and you're not done? You're gonna keep swinging?"

"She's pregnant…." he said, ripping the band aid so hard he winded an increasingly unsurprised Kathy, "… she's just over four months pregnant."

"How long?" that empathy began to fade, and Kathy's eyes narrowed.

"Well, I, I guess around 17 weeks…"

"No, no you asshole I can do math…." sighing angrily Kathy rose from her chair and began pacing their kitchen, "… how long've you been sleeping with her?"

"Longer than that."

"Well, I suppose I should be grateful that you're finally starting to be honest with me."

"There's one more thing."

"What?" laughing, hard and guttural Kathy stilled to quiet and shook her head. "Come on Elliot now I'm just curious what the hell else you can put on the table. At this point I'm not sure I've got any more shock left in me."

"When I said she'd almost recovered from the shooting that wasn't completely true. Physically, yes, she's basically recovered from the bullet."

"You said it was in an out, it just got her in the shoulder?" said Kathy, hugging her arms around herself and unconsciously swaying side to side.

"She's got something called post traumatic amnesia. She hit her head when she went down. She hit it hard. And she doesn't remember anything now."

"What?" mouthing the word and then finding when she went to speak again no sound came out Kathy just held her silence.

"All she knows right now is that she's pregnant and it's mine, but she doesn't remember how we got here. She doesn't remember any of it, her whole life is just a…."

"El are you okay?" uncrossing her arms Kathy stepped forward, and reached for him. Squeezing his shoulders with her hands she ducked her head to catch his gaze and asked again, "Are you handling this?"

"I….."

"It's okay, you can answer. You can talk to me."

"Can I?" he asked, feeling as though he were walking blind in the dark unsure as to how far of the path he had gotten.

"I know you love her…." said Kathy quietly, "… I know how _much_ you love her."

"I'm so sorry Kathy…." he said, through grinding teeth, his insides shredding.

"I came close to losing you once before Elliot. We almost divorced before we found out I was pregnant with Eli. And even though we stayed for all the right reasons at the time, it doesn't mean it was the right choice looking back. I know that seeing how badly you're hurting right now. I don't know whether we would've wound up splitting anyway if you two hadn't been partnered up all those years ago, but ever since you were it's only been a matter of time."

"This wasn't happening then Kath I swear it. I swear to God we really were just partners back then."

"You were never just partners El, not from the first day Olivia walked into your life. You were in love with her right from the start whether you knew it or not. Maybe she's not the only reason our marriage has failed, but she's been the catalyst."

"I don't know what to say Kath. Truly, I don't. I can't make my head process all this. I just keep apologising but I know it's too late, it doesn't help you."

"What're you gonna do Elliot? What happens now?"

* * *

"Can I get you two ladies a drink?"

"Eh, just a soda water for me thanks…." said Olivia, pursing glossed lips as she sat beside Casey at the bar.

"Wine, red, large…." said Casey, before smiling politely at the bartender, "… please."

"Bad day?"

"I had to tie up some loose ends in LA and it didn't go quite the way I'd planned."

"Were you working out there?" asked Olivia, crossing one leg over the other and listening openly to the woman she now very much felt to be her friend.

It wasn't immediate, instantaneous, it was a slow creep. Like putting on an old leather jacket from the wardrobe, cold and unfamiliar at first before the leather starts to warm and remould to your body. Casey, Fin and Donald Cragen had all made a space for themselves in her post accident world and she crew increasingly comfortable around them. Then, slowly, as she relaxed, the memories began to seep through the cracks. Not big ones, not events, or really anything you could put into words. Just a slow remembering of their presence and the way her soul inclined to theirs.

"Partly, sort of, it was completed. It ended up as kind of a mess. There was a guy. Isn't there anyways?"

"Apparently, it turns out."

"We were seeing each other casually at first and then it started to become more serious. He wanted to settle down and even started talking about having a family."

"And you weren't ready for that?"

"I don't know if I'll ever be ready for that. Maybe I'm not wired right, I don't know. Anyways something about it just made me crawl, but I didn't say anything. Obviously, that would be too easy, to kind. No, no I just let the poor guy get further and further in while I kept one eye on the door the whole time."

"That must've been hard."

"He didn't really notice." Shrugged Casey, her forthrightness a tonic to Olivia in all the confusion.

"No, no I meant for you…." said Olivia, taking a sip of her soda water and tilting her head in sympathy, "… to live with that uncertainty."

"I didn't help myself. I started acting out. I was such a cliché and I didn't even see it. Like if I started spending a little less time with him, staying out a little later with the guys from work after hours. Drinking a little too much, getting a little too close. Testing the boundaries. Pushing Karl as far as I could so that he might be the one to end it and I wouldn't have to."

"Did it work?" asked Olivia.

"I guess karma got me before he got chance to. Something happened…." lowering her eyes, taking a generous gulp of her wine Casey drifted away, "… and I had to leave."

"Casey?"

"I was in a bar with my coworkers, the same one we always went to after working late. I'd been working probono out there, consultancy work, kind of. Anyway we'd had this big case and we'd just needed to blow off some steam so we'd all had a little too much to drink. I went to the bathroom. They were downstairs, in the basement beside the staff room. I got down there and one of the bar guys came out of the darkness somewhere further down the corridor and followed me into the ladies room."

"It's okay…." said Olivia instinctively, reaching a hand and laying it over Casey's on the bar.

"There was barely any light in the bathroom and we were the only two in there. He pushed me into one of the stalls and I tried to fight him off but I didn't stand a chance. He was twice my size. There was nothing I could do to stop him…."

" _I feel really jumpy. He came so close, and there was nothing I could do to stop him. And he completely overpowered me."_

"I tried to yell, banged on the metal stall to try and get someone's attention but the music upstairs was so loud no one could hear me."

" _Shut up and do what you're told."_

She was wearing orange, but she wasn't sure why. Almost like overalls, and she smelt unfamiliar. It was dark, and her heart was pounding. She didn't know where she was but she was fighting to survive, to escape. She was yelling for help. Her eyes met his.

" _You bite me, and you're dead."_

"It all happened so quickly it's hard to piece it together now. I remember him throwing me back against the wall and hitting my head. I got dizzy, but something clicked and I brought my knee up. Fast, hard. It winded up and it gave me time to get out."

" _You're a cop?"_

" _Who's the bitch now?"_

"Liv? Olivia?"

"He came so close to…." murmured Olivia absently.

Casey slid from her barstool, placing a hand firmly but slowly on Olivia's shoulder. She was sweating, her tan skin lightly jewelled with perspiration at her lip and temples. Her eyes were gone, dilated, somewhere else. As she slid her hand into Olivia's she could feel the cold damp of terror there.

"Liv let's get out of here, come on, let's go outside and get some air."

"I'm sorry…." coming back into herself Olivia blinked repeatedly and looked to Casey terrified.

"Oh God, no I'm the one that's sorry! I'm such an idiot, I should never have told you that…."

"No!" said Olivia, getting to her feet and clutching Casey's hand tightly. "No, no I'm glad you did."

"Come on, here, take my arm…" instructed Casey, bundling Olivia with forthright insistence down the bar and out into the street. It was dark, and it was crisp, and it was cleansing.

"Something happened to me Casey. Something happened to me….." choosing her words carefully Olivia found the courage to meet her friend's eyes, "…. like what happened to you in LA."

"And you remember it?"

"Fin got there just in time."

"Are you okay? Do you need me to call someone?"

"Are _you_ okay?"

"I suppose our answers are probably the same, aren't they?"

"You wanna come back to mine for a while?" asked Olivia, her lips thinning to an empathetic smile. "I have wine."

* * *

"Let's go."

"You can't keep away, huh?"

"Always been my problem."

"Humph…." said Olivia, holding herself back, but curious to see the mischief of suggestion in his eyes. She suspected she had been equally unable to resist if the heat under her skin in that moment were any indication.

"I came to tell you something so I'm going to say it, and then when I'm done I will leave. If that's what you want. I'm not trying to force your hand, or stalk you, or pile on pressure or…"

"Go on then? Say whatever it is?" she was listening, she was open to him.

He relaxed a little and just observed her for a second. The way her hair was escaping its clip and framing her face, the way her warm eyes searched for his, and she glowed with health despite everything. She was radiant, she was beautiful. He loved her more every minute and it only made it so much harder to bear that she wasn't herself.

"My marriage is over. I talked to Kathy yesterday and we're gonna move forward with the divorce. So whatever happens next, whatever you choose to do, whatever is or isn't happening here, whatever does or doesn't exist between the two of us I just wanted you to know. I thought you needed to know."

"You left your wife for me?" she swallowed, a little stunned. Something in her, far deep below the surface, told her that this was enormous. This was beyond anything she thought would or could happen.

"And I should've done it years ago. I should never have made you an affair, Liv. I should've left Kathy the second I realised I could never love her the same way I…."

"I remembered something yesterday."

"Wh…." coughing lightly, Elliot was shaken, "… what? You did?"

"It was….."

"Hey, hey it's okay…" he said quickly, instinctively rushing to her and standing close, grabbing for her hands and holding them tight. "You don't have to tell me."

"I was in a prison. In a basement. Alone, with a guard."

"Liv?" he whispered, when she had come to a natural pause and didn't seem able or wanting to continue.

"Yeah?" she whispered back, barely audible as her eyes found his.

"I'm here."

"I was terrified. I remember feeling trapped, and helpless, and…." swallowing grimly eyes yes darkened a moment, "…. violated."

"I wish that I had have been there." He said, jaw locked. There was a flash of violence in his eyes that was as terrifying as it was exhilarating to Olivia. The ferocity of this man's love for her was tangible.

"You were." She said, so quietly he thought that he had misheard. Elliot went to speak and then hesitated, and so she continued. "It was all such a vivid memory but that was the clearest part. You might not have been there physically but I remember that the person I thought of in that moment, the person I _clung_ to in that moment? It was you Elliot."

"Liv…." he mouthed, breathing their clasped hands and feeling emboldened to reach for her face, stroking lightly at her jaw line and trusting she wouldn't flinch. She didn't, she didn't move away, and she inclined her cheek slightly into his waiting palm.

"You really are completely in love with her aren't you?" she gasped, marvelling at the intensity with which his blue eyes were shooting fireworks into her soul.

"With **you** , Olivia. I'm in love with **you** , it's the same person. You've gotten amnesia not a lobotomy! You're not dead you're just sleeping. And I'll be here when you wake up. I'm gonna be right here waiting for you as long as it takes."

"Thank you…" and there it was, her smile, dusted from the rubble and bright as ever. Biting her lip she closed her eyes, took a giant step forward; and into his arms. Curling herself into his broad chest she held him around his middle, tucking her head under his chin and breathing him in slowly. It felt safe, it felt like home.


	7. Fault

"I know this place."

"Yeah?" asked Fin, taking a sip from his paper coffee cup and breathing steam into the cold mid-Autumn air as he sat with Olivia outside the 16th precinct.

"It's a part of me…." she said quietly, her browns knitting lightly as she drank in the building and took slow breaths, "… it's more than just a place of work."

"Huh, you remembering more?"

"It's hard to explain. There're no details. It's more feeling than anything. I couldn't tell you about the last time I was here or what I did, or probably remember the names of the people I see every day. I just know that this place is familiar. I belong here."

"I'm not sure you wanna be so hasty in remembering the last time you were here. It wasn't pretty. You got shot and taken out under blue lights and sirens."

"Oh so _now_ you want to start volunteering details?" she smiled, turning to him and wondering just how much she could prise from his reluctant palms. "You got any more story time in you Odafin?"

She'd caught him out and he couldn't help but smile. It felt good to be around her, even if it was a constant struggle to keep himself in check and not reveal more than he ought. There were no clearly defined lines and it filled him with a quiet dread if he thought too long on how much she had still to remember. She might have remembered SVU and feel a sense of belonging but there had been no signs as of yet that she remembered any details of her lineage, beyond knowing that Serena had passed. There was so much history held within the walls of the 16th precinct and she had only as yet scratched the surface.

"That's against the rules remember, doctor's orders."

"Because you're such a fan of authority figures and conformity?" said Olivia drily, then quietly asked herself where that had come from. She knew Fin better than she realised.

"You get too involved. They're more than just cases to you, they're people and you take them into your heart. Every single one."

"That sounds exhausting."

"Humph…." replied Fin, starting at her perplexed and wondering what to say. "It is."

"You and Elliot have been partners a long time, over a decade. You spend all day every together working cases and you're a good team. You're close. You've gotten closer over the years. He's an asshole but you balance him out."

"Why don't you like him?" she asked, openly, innocently, but not giving him the space to avoid the question. "Because you don't, that much is pretty clear. Do you two don't see eye to eye on the job?"

"Stabler and I rarely see eye to eye on anything."

"But it's personal too, right?" she noted, and he flinched. She had struck a nerve.

"Nah, nah it's not personal. We're just different, he's alright really. He's not a bad person, not at the core."

"Yeah?" something about the way she looked at him, something in her eyes, told him that whatever he answered carried more weight than he had ever realised.

"Elliot Stabler is a lot of things, but ultimately he's a decent guy. He never stops trying to do the right thing, and that's all anyone can ask of a person right? He's not perfect, but who the hell is. We spar, we throw our weight around but he's a good detective and on balance I'd rather have him around as not."

"He married young, right?"

"He was military, Marine Corps. I think he got out when Kathy had Maureen but don't quote me. Yeah, yeah they were young but they're Catholic. Like I said, always trying to do the right thing."

"They happy?" two words, loaded. He was about to answer unthinkingly and then hesitated, remembering just who he was talking to.

"Nah, nah you ain't catching me in that. I'm not commenting on Stabler's marriage. That's too far, Benson."

"You must've heard him talking through, noticed things given how much time you two spend together. They've got five children, one still so young. He never mention problems at home?"

"What're you really asking me here Liv?" something was off, something didn't stack up. For someone that supposedly didn't remember anything there was a heat in her eyes, an intensity that betrayed her. "And why are you so interested?"

"I'm not, no, just trying to figure out all the….." taking a sip of coffee and then cursing under her breath as it burned her tongue, and seared her throat on the way down she swallowed, "… work dynamics. That's all."

"You wanna go inside?" he offered, finishing his drink and getting up from the bench. "See for yourself?"

"I can't face it, not yet. Everyone starting at me. I hate the feeling that they know more than I do. I'll get there, but I'm not there yet."

"Well I should clock in before Munch has my ass for leaving him on his own again."

"What you said earlier about meeting your son? About Thanksgiving?"

"You thought about it?" asked Fin. It came in waves still, he realised, hearing her talking about meeting Ken who she had known for years.

"I'd really like to join you guys if the offer's still on the table."

"Absolutely….." he nodded, and then added with a grin, "… you can bring dessert."

* * *

"You hanging in there?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine. Thanks for coming with me by the way."

"Sure, of course. I mean I'm not sure I'm actual of any practical use. I could write what I know about pregnancy on a stamp but I'm here for as long as you want me to be."

"I know I should've told him I was coming here, that this was happening today…." taking the hair tie from around her wrist Olivia pulled her hair from her face and tied it loosely, throwing Casey a reluctant glance, "… the father I mean."

"So in the spirit of full disclosure I should probably tell you that I know you're talking about Stabler." Ever the lawyer Casey Novak swung on leg over the opposite and clasped her hands in her lap and maintained a fixed expression.

"What?" mildly panicked, more because she was unsure as to what the implications of Casey knowing would be. She had learned to tread on egg shells, to live in the shadows trying figure out who knew what, and what she ought to know but couldn't remember. The layers of complexity were exhausting.

"Don't be mad at him, he just needed an outlet. He's can get pretty tightly wound and none of this has been easy on him either."

"So he told you?" it was strange, though Olivia to herself, that she wasn't entirely sure whether she ought to be heartened or maddened by this discovery.

"You know you can say a lot of things about Elliot Stabler but he loves his kids. Deeply. If you'd told him this scan was happening he'd have run through fire to get here."

"I know that."

"So….." tested Casey, dusk pink lips forming a careful circle as she read Olivia's expression, "… oh, oh I see."

"You can judge me all you want Casey but I'm just feeling my way in the dark here. I can barely tell which way is up let alone which is the lesser evil. I'm pregnant to a man I don't remember having a relationship with, not really, only tiny pieces. I'm pregnant with a child I can't remember conceiving. Not just in a vague oh I wonder which specific night it is way. I fundamentally cannot remember the last time I had sex or who it was with. I'm going on his word and my gut that it's his."

"Liv I can't even imagine..." reaching for Olivia's hand Casey gave it a tight squeeze, a gesture that carried more weight than words ever could have in that moment.

"There isn't a single thing in my life right now that I have any control over."

"You have control over this." Said Casey firmly, steadfast in her belief. "You have control over your own body, regardless of what has happened up until this point."

"Even if I don't remember what that is? Even if I don't _remember_ what happened to get me, to get us, here?"

"Even if."

"I could make a terrible mistake. What happens if I make a choice that feels right now and then tomorrow I remember everything and have to live the rest of my life regretting it? Elliot said I want this baby more than anything."

"He had no right to tell you that."

"Didn't he? Doesn't he?" asked Olivia, but it was clear the question was rhetorical. "I'm not so sure the normal lines of rights and wrongs apply here."

"This whole thing is confusing enough for you without him trying to tell you what you do and don't want, what you should and shouldn't think. If you don't remember it for yourself then what does it matter? You have to do the right thing for the person you are right now. Or by the time you regain your memory you may well have lost your mind."

"Something tells me that you're going to tell him that to his face next time you see him."

"Damn right I will."

"Even if I did want to keep this baby what kind of mother would I be right now? I haven't the first clue what I'm doing with my own life, it seems madness to put me in charge of someone else's. I couldn't do this even if I wanted to."

"You could."

"Do you really believe that?" asked Olivia, her tan skin radiant in the low slung sun. She was beautiful, thought Casey, even in all her pain. Maybe more so because of it. She had a bewitching capacity to be both impossibly strong and incredibly vulnerable.

"I believe that Olivia Benson can do just about anything. You _will_ remember, Liv. I honestly believe that. Not just from talking to the doctors but because I know you. You've never once backed down from a fight, never walked away from something you believed in, never given up because things got tough. You'll come back from this stronger than ever."

"It's hard to know what I believe in right now."

"So trust your gut, to my knowledge it's never failed you yet."

"Really?"

"I mean it's gotten you into trouble a few times sure…." then sensing this was neither the time to tease, nor to head too far down memory lane Casey flashed an encouraging smile. "Besides, total idiots raise perfectly normal well-adjusted babies every day. It can't be that hard."

"Okay, you almost had me convinced…."

"I'm kidding…." said Casey with a dry smile, "… kind of."

"Something tells me Casey Novak is someone I want on my side."

"I am on your side, Liv, for sure. You should know though that I'm on his side too. I won't paint Stabler as the devil in this even if some others around you will. He's not perfect but he's a good guy, and he's my friend."

"I'm not naïve Casey. I'm not a victim in this, not by a long way. I might not remember exactly how I got into this but I don't doubt that it was with both eyes open. I know how I feel around him. I can't imagine I took much persuading."

"How you _still_ feel around him?" asked Casey, and although Olivia was saved from answering by the midwife's arrival her eyes had already betrayed her.

* * *

" _Ryan, Ryan, hey buddy come here!"_

" _Freeze!"_

" _Move, move, Olivia! On my God, no, no…"_

" _It's okay, I'm okay, go Elliot, go I'm fine. Go!"_

Sitting bolt upright in bed Olivia clutched at her neck, then, as her muscles relaxed and her heart rate slowed she realised she was awake. It wasn't real. Only it was. Following the technique that the therapist had taught her she listed things that she could see, things that she could smell, things that she could touch. Yet as one hand clutched at the comforter, the ribbon of her PJs, and the wood of her nightstand the other remained at her neck. She traced over and over the skin where the knife had cut, where it had left a wound. The wound was reopen, she had been back there. She had seen the terror in Elliot's eyes. The abject fear of losing her. The inability to imagine life without her.

" _Have you got something you wanna say to me? Cuz if you do, let's hear it."_

" _Why didn't you shoot Gitano?"_

" _He was using the child as a shield."_

" _How could you let him get so close to you?"_

" _There were innocent civilians around. I couldn't get a shot."_

" _Well he got close and Ryan's dead. So this is my fault?"_

" _No, I can't do this anymore. I can't be looking over my shoulder making sure you're okay."_

" _You son of a bitch. You know that's not true."_

" _I need to know you can do your job and not wait for me to come to your rescue."_

" _All right, that's enough. Knock it off. Now, in case you've forgotten, there's still a little girl out there with a psycho, if we're lucky and he hasn't already slit her throat. I have to say this again to you, you're both suspended. Now get your asses down to the morgue. Warner's got something to show you."_

Sitting upright in the bed she drew her knees into her chest and the comforter around her shoulders. Breathing quietly in the darkness she hugged herself tight, but didn't cry. This wasn't upset she was feeling, this wasn't sadness. It was joy, a tentative, shaky joy. Reaching for her cell phone she hesitated over the buttons, rubbing her thumb back and forth and hesitating. She wanted more; she had the taste for it. Falling back against the pillow she inhaled and exhaled slowly. Don't force it, don't clench up, and don't lock down. Don't frighten it away. Breathe.

" _If that sniper hadn't beaten you to it, I know you would have taken the shot, Olivia."_

" _No, I wouldn't have. Did you really expect me to? Did you really expect me to cause your death? What about your kids?"_

" _I don't know. Just couldn't get that boy out of my head."_

" _What about me?"_

" _Look, we both chose each other over the job. I'll never let that happen again. Otherwise we can't be partners."_

" _I can't believe you're saying that."_

" _You and this job are the only things I've got anymore. I don't wanna wreck that. I couldn't take it."_

Inhaling slowly, deeply, she opened her eyes and fished around under the covers for her phone. She ignored the clock showing past one thirty in the morning. She typed before she lost her nerve. "I know it's late and I'm sorry. But can you come over? I need to see you. Liv x"

"Hi."

"Hey…." she swallowed, shaky with the release of twenty five minutes anticipation. "You didn't reply. I didn't know if you'd come."

"I was driving. I got in the car as soon as I saw your message."

"Right…." she said quietly. The way he looked at her, the way he had come without question or hesitation took her breath away.

"You shouldn't text and drive."

"Yes, yeah that's very…." holding his gaze fixed she whispered, "… admirable of you."

"You okay?" he asked, breathing their eyes to look her up and down for any visible signs of injury or distress. She was wearing his hoodie, which he knew but he suspected she did not. He had left it at her place the last time he had stayed over.

"Fine, yeah, I'm….." then shaking her head, moving a hand to her face she rubbed at her forehead and stopped talking.

"Liv?"

"Look if I do something can I just have you trust me for a second and not freak out?"

"Do something?" he asked, lifting a bush brow and flashing a mischief smile that only confirmed she was doing exactly the right thing. "Liv you're acting kind of strange."

"I know. I can see that it would seem that way. Like I say that's why I need to trust that I'm not losing my mind. In fact, actually, for the first time since all of this happened I actually feel like I might be thinking clearly."

"Okay I…." he began, but before he could continue she was pressed up against him. Her chest against his chest, her left hand on his neck, her right hand touching lightly at his cheek as she leant up and pressed her lips firmly against his.

"Don't freak out…." she repeated, at a murmur, her mouth warm on his as he slowly parted his lips and relaxed into a long, tender kiss that awakened embers in both of them to sparks that could relight a full blaze.

"I'm freaking out a little bit here, not gonna lie….." he said finally, once they had naturally parted. He held her still though, both arms tightly around her, as though he might never let go.

"I think that Cragen should've stopped us being partners a long time ago. Probably around the time you saved me instead of Ryan."

"Oh my….." swallowing so hard he almost choked Elliot stood back, staggered almost, "…. God, Liv, you remember?"

"I remember that. Not anything else. Not yet. Sometimes I dream things and I know they're not real but sometimes…."

"You know they are?" he said, but he wasn't really asking a question. "As I cop I made a mistake that day but I'd do it over again in a heartbeat. I don't regret it."

"Like I said….." she was smiling now, and it lit up his world, "…. _terrible_ partners."

"We were epic partners, Benson. We still are."

"Oh we can never be partners again on the job. If you couldn't keep your professional head when I was just a possibility I'm pretty sure you'd be terrible around me _and_ your baby."

"You were more than just a possibility to me Liv even then, you were….." then replaying her words in his mind his face fell, his eyes widened, "… wait what did you just say?"

"That we can't be partners anymore?"

"You called it a baby…." he spoke gruffly, quietly, hopefully, "… is it gonna be a baby?"

"Don't get me wrong I've had doubts, I still have some. I am not in a good place right now. I went for a scan today, though, and the baby is doing great. It's healthy; it's all the things it's supposed to be. It wasn't rainbows and butterflies. I didn't fall in love with the black and white kidney bean like they do in movies. I didn't really feel anything if I'm totally honest."

"But it's healthy?" and then more important to him Elliot added, "And you are? Healthy?"

"We're both doing just fine."

"And….." he daren't speak, he wasn't entirely sure of his line.

"I didn't feel anything watching the sonogram but I felt something just now. I meant what I said that day, you were wrong. I would never have taken that shot. I was in love with you."

"I think we were both already further into this thing at that point then we were ready to admit."

"Elliot I haven't a clue what I'm doing here but all I know is that what I feel for you is the single strongest, most real thing in my life right now. I trust in it. I trust you. I know that you want me to keep this baby and I trust you when you tell me that it's the right thing for me too. That it's the right thing for us."


	8. Lost In Your Own Life

"This is great."

"Back when my dad had hair, right?" laughed Ken, knowing which photograph Olivia was holding in the frame in her hand.

"Have you always been close?"

"Me and Dad?" asked Ken puzzled for a fleeting second. Then he remembered himself, and Olivia inwardly cringed to see him struggle to figure out how to move forward with the conversation. "Sorry, man, I'm so sorry Olivia I forgot for a second."

"That's okay…." she said simply, and though so much was different in her, the warmth of her smile being enough to erase all the discomfort in the world shone through consistently. "Honestly, don't worry about it, don't look so frightened I'm fine."

"Sure?"

"I've forgotten more…" she teased, and it was disarming how like herself she was despite everything, "… right?"

"Things have been a little complicated between me and my dad over the years but we've been better lately. I think we're starting to figure each other out. I guess maybe I had to figure myself out first."

"I think that's important in any relationship. It's always hard to give away a part of yourself. You have to make sure there's enough of you left for you."

"Are we still talking about me here?" asked Ken, who held the same emotional intuition as his father but with his mother's ability to articulate it.

"I have no idea what my father looked like." said Olivia, as Fin wandered into the living room and joined her on the couch. Ken shifted uneasily in the recliner nearby and looked to his father to take the lead.

"Your father?" he asked, buying time.

"We're definitely still talking about you, both of you. However you got here…" raising her glass toasted warmly, "… it's something to be thankful for, right?"

"It sure is…" said Fin, raising his beer bottle in agreement.

"Are you feeling better? Physically I mean. Has your shoulder healed?"

"Yeah, yeah it's doing a lot better. I'm having some physio and they think I'll regain full movement. So that's something. I asked them about going back to work actually."

"You did?" asked Fin, with poorly masked alarm.

"I did, and they cleared me to return to duty. Desk duty, then within a few weeks they thought I could be back on the job as normal. Well, bar the pregnancy obviously."

"So you're coming back to the 1-6?" said Fin, his voice still a shade of strain. He wasn't sure what flagged redder to him, the thought of Olivia returning to SVU as though nothing had changed or the fact that she continued to refer detachedly to the pregnancy as though it were a passing illness or an inanimate object.

"I wish, they won't give me psych clearance."

"That's tough." Offered Ken, starting to flesh out with colour and shape the picture Fin had painted of Olivia's situation. He understood now why he was worried, and it seemed to him increasingly justified.

"They still think I have work to do. The amnesia isn't clearing as quickly as they'd hoped. I still have a lot of gaps, missing pieces. They think it could be months rather than weeks before they'll sign off."

"How you doing with that?" asked Fin, taking a slow sip of his beer.

"I don't know. Frustrated I suppose, disappointed in a way I can't quite figure out. I mean I don't disagree with them, they're the professionals. I can't pretend I remember more than I do. I don't know that I even want to go back to work that badly. Sometimes I'm indifferent to it and others I can't help but feeling like it's the key to everything. To all of this."

"Liv…."

"I mean it's what ties it all together right? It's how we met, it's where Elliot and I are partners. It's where I spend all my time. It's evidently the only place I've ever made a friend…." there was a part of Fin that wanted to smile because her wry humour was as sharp as ever, and yet somehow in the current context it wasn't funny at all. "When people talk to me about it it's like they sense I belong there and I'm starting to feel that too. It doesn't take a genius, or a memory, to figure out that SVU is more than just a 9-5 to me."

"I guess it has to be for anyone that works there though, right Dad?" deflected Ken, for which Fin was incredibly grateful. Better to peel the onion than the slice it down the middle. "Either that or you'd have to be dead inside, or insane. That probably accounts for you, Dad, so…."

"You know what I think that turkey is due another basting, son, so how about it huh?"

* * *

"I think I need one of these."

"You don't."

"This I _definitely_ need."

"You do not."

"This?" asked Elliot, brandishing a gravy ladle aloft to Olivia on the other side of the department store counter.

"Will you stop! Unless you're planning on opening up a restaurant from your kitchen you don't need any of that stuff. How about we focus on the basics and you can graduate to whatever the hell that is that you're holding on that other hand later?"

"This one looks good? I might need to make a casserole when people come over. Oh and I was thinking that I should probably get some real bedding. I mean I'm fine in the sleeping bag but just in case someone else stays over, you know?"

"Someone else, huh?" she asked, fingering some delicate glassware and watching to see his reaction to her deliberately loaded question.

She knew she was teasing him and she was trying to strike the right balance between that and genuine support. Though she was unsure of all the details she knew enough to understand that this was a big step for Elliot. Getting his own place and moving out of the family home he had shared with Kathy for so many years was a huge change. Although their department store adventure was highlighting his lack of domestic general knowledge, she could tell from his slightly edgy demeanour that this was uncharted emotional ground too.

"How has it been there the first few nights? You getting used to the new place?" she asked as they wandered absentmindedly through the rest of the homeware department.

"Yeah it's okay I guess, it takes a while to get used to being someplace new I suppose."

"Have you spoken to Kathy?"

"On and off. Weirdly there seems to be more going on with the kids since I moved out than there was in the whole year before."

"Is there more going on or is she just quicker to share it with you?" asked Olivia, and Elliot realised he had not considered that possibility. He tended to take things at face value, and it hadn't crossed his mind that Kathy might seek out opportunities to make contact with him beyond those that were strictly necessary.

"You know other than a night here and there undercover or away on the job I've never lived alone."

"What, _ever_?" she remarked, and the fact that she sounded so surprised pinched at him. She knew his life. Or she used to.

"I went pretty much straight from my mom's to Parris Island to living with Kath. I've always been around people. I've never had this much quiet time on my own to think. I'm not sure that it's such a good thing."

"You doing okay?" she asked, but he didn't really need to answer. Whatever might have been gone from her mind, her heart was tuned to his frequency. It hurt her to see how badly he was struggling to pretend that he wasn't.

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine…." he rushed, a little too quickly, "… absolutely fine."

"Because you know you can talk to me and…."

"You're right I don't need any of the crap here. Who am I kidding? I barely manage to get my takeout onto a plate most nights. I'm not a man in need of a tureen or a mini chopper. I think I have all I need here. You wanna just pay for this shit and then go grab a coffee or something?"

"It's just gonna take time. It's a big change, it's a lot to get your head around but it'll get easier."

"I hope so."

"You know I can't help but feel responsible for…"

"Hey, hey no, no don't do that."

"You started down this road for me and then when it was all too late to put back in the box I…." trailing off she cast her eyes to the ground, swallowing guiltily."

"Liv I'm still on this road for you….." he said quietly, reaching out and tugging loyally at the sleeve of her coat, "… nothing changed for me remember?"

"I know but everything changed for me, and that makes this so impossibly _complicated_ Elliot."

"Complicated…." he agreed, but doggedly refusing to waver he added, "… but not impossible."

"Do you really believe that?" she asked, heart heavy and mind a constant fog.

"No doubt in my mind or my heart…." he said, with the kind of frank honesty and openness that she suspected she had been waiting forever for, "… we're meant to be together Liv."

"I wish I could have that kind of clarity…." she sighed, for the first time with a painful twist of hopelessness, "…. about anything."

"You'll get there, it's just gonna take time, right?"

"Right…" she smiled, visibly in no way convinced.

"And until then, look, I'm ready for company now…." he said, gesturing down to the cart filled with crockery and silverware and a set of mugs to join his one chipped NYPD offering. "I'd even take the couch and offer a guest my sleeping bag bed."

"Is that a hint?" she teased, lightening the mood. Was she flirting?

Sometimes she caught herself and couldn't deny that she was. She wanted him, of course she did, that much oozed from her every pore and yet something about that terrified her. There was a strange irony, she realised, that for seemingly so long they had wanted to be together and been unable to be for whatever reason. Now there they were together shopping together like a couple. He was separated from his wife, a free agent, willing and able to commit himself to her and their unborn child. There was nothing standing in their way of complete and total happiness. Nothing beside her inability to remember how they'd gotten there, why she felt the way she felt about him, or what it really meant to be Olivia Benson.

* * *

"How'd it go?"

"Fine, yeah, fine. A lot of same old same old."

"My God I don't know how we were ever an affair because you are a terrible, terrible liar."

"To you I am."

"Mmm?" she asked, lowering the potato and peeler in her hand and puzzling. "What?"

"I never could keep anything from you, right from the start. It's been a blessing and a curse over the years. You see right through me…." he shrugged, meeting her eyes and seeing her chasing after a memory she couldn't catch, "…always have."

"What happened?"

"Cragen's taken on a new detective to cover your leave."

"A new detective?"

"Mackenzie, she's homicide by trade which should give her some balls at least."

"She?" arching a perfectly sculpted brow Olivia swallowed slowly. "Also put your claws away Elliot. I'm sure she's a perfectly capable detective. Cragen wouldn't have hired her if she wasn't."

"I don't want a new partner…." he grumbled, leaning on the counter, lolling back and forth against it and sighing heavily. "I want you back."

They had fallen into an easy routine of cooking together several evenings out of the week. Mostly Olivia cooking as best she was able, and Elliot watching on in a supervisory role while they chatted. Tonight they were at her place, which he still found the stranger of the two options. His new rental had never existed in the old world, whereas her apartment was exactly as it had been before everything changed. As was she, to look at, the only woman he had ever found desperately attractive in an old grey hoodie and a haphazardly gathered ponytail.

"I know you do…." she said quietly.

It came suddenly, a wave, a gust of wind around a blind corner and it took her breath and caused her to miss a step. His pain was palpable. They had been having fun together, they had, and they were easy in each other's company. She had been enjoying getting to know him. It came to her suddenly, that the very fact of that must be agony for him. She was no stranger to him.

"I'm not trying to be a dick about it. I get it really, it makes sense, it's just so much damn change. We can't work a man down forever and we don't know how long it'll be until you're ready to come back. Then even when you are back I'm not idiot enough to think questions need to be asked about us being partners at all. Plus even if they signed you off to return after the shooting there's the baby and maternity leave and…"

"Do you want a salad with this?" she asked, slicing clear through the middle of his sentence with a dogged determination that startled him.

"Salad?"

"We have the chicken and potatoes and then I was thinking of doing a small salad?" she offered, reaching for a cucumber and waving it at him.

"You know it works both ways."

"What does?"

"You never could lie to me either."

"Why won't anyone tell me who my father was?" she asked carefully, calmly, laying down the cucumber like a sword on the counter.

"Where did that come from?" said Elliot, moving around the counter and treading agonizingly softly. "What's really going on here? Is it work? Me getting a new partner? Is it because I mentioned the baby?"

"Yes, no, I don't know!" she gasped, closing her eyes and turning away. Folding her arms across her chest she brought a hand to her mouth, chewing on her thumbnail and breathing as best she was able until the nausea abated a little.

"Because nothing will really change. I've had different partners before and it never works, not really. It's never the same. Not even professionally never mind…." his mind wandered momentarily, before he brought himself back with a decisive, "… it's never the same. No one else gets me, no one else fits me the way you do. So if you're worried about that then don't. There isn't a single person in that squad room who isn't desperate for you to come back."

"That's sweet, you're sweet, you're kind, you are…."

"Liv?" he asked, his brow and worry deepening.

"And as for the baby I know it's scary. I know there are a billion things to figure out but we have time. We have so much time and it's gonna be fine. I just need you to talk to me. I can't help if I don't know what…."

"Talk to you?" she laughed wretchedly, "Elliot I am talking to you. I tell you all the damn time what it is that I need. I can't live like this. For a few days, weeks maybe, but months? Indefinitely?"

"I can't imagine what this is like for you."

"No, no you can't."

"The doctors…."

"Did he cheat?" she pushed, ignoring his attempt to reiterate the doctor's advice to them all not to tell her the whole truth all at once and to try to let her remember things gradually in her own time. "Is that why there aren't any photos of him? I mean my place is hardly awash with picture evidence of my nearest and dearest but at least there are a few scattered photos of my mother. I know she drank, I know she was an alcoholic. I know that she and I had a difficult relationship. I remember enough pieces of my childhood to know that I'm in no rush to remember any more."

"Liv…."

"Was it a messy separation? When did he stop trying to contact me? I mean it was clear when no one at the hospital had any clue how to get hold of him that it's been a long time since we were in touch. But were we _ever_? Do I know my father at all? Why did he leave? Did he not want to know me?" the look on her face broke his heart. He couldn't even begin to imagine what she was feeling in that moment and he felt as though he were seeing her as a little girl again. Frightened, abandoned, confused and terrified that it's all her fault.

"Olivia that's a lot of questions that…."

"A lot of questions?" she squawked, momentarily losing grip of her usual calm. Throwing her hands in the air she took several steps backwards. Staring at him, mouth lightly agape, she just shook her head disappointed. "Is he dead too? Is that what you're all so desperately trying to avoid telling me?"

"This is an impossible situation for me."

"This is an impossible situation for **me**!" she yelled back, fire and anger falling to crippling sadness as she stared at him glassy eyed and lost. "How can I trust you? How can I trust _any of you_ when I know you're all keeping so much from me? How can I make rational, informed decisions about my life and now a child's life when I don't have all the facts?"

"I know, I know and…"

"How can I have a baby with a person who won't be completely honest with me?"

"Liv how can I make you understand this from my side? I'm trying here, I promise you I am. I'm just terrified to break you. All your doctors, the therapists, this whole time they keep warning about how fragile you are and how not to overload you and how memories of traumatic events can be detrimental to the overall recovery of your…."

"Elliot I'm already broken…." she said quietly, rolling her shoulders and meeting his eyes with giant brown pools of pain, "… can't you see that?"

"I love you so damn much Olivia, you have to believe me."

"I do believe you. I feel it. I feel things for you that scare the hell out of me because they're not built on trust or history or judgement. I felt it the first time I met you. The first time I met you for the second time, I mean. Probably it was the same the first time because something tells me that it's always been inevitable. I don't have to remember you Elliot because you're a part of me. It's raw and it's feral and it's inescapable and in all this crazy, in all this mess and confusion something in my gut tells me to cling to you. To cling to this. I just can't do that if you're keeping me at arms-length. I can't talk to you through this wall you've built to keep me from all that you know and I can't remember."

"Liv what you're asking me to do is…."

"Cragen, Fin, everyone else I get it. I wouldn't ask it of them. But I'm asking it of you. I'm terrified here, Elliot. I'm walking around blindfold, hands tied behind my back, waiting for my past to jump out from around the next corner and beat the shit out of me. I can't sleep. I can barely eat. I can't live like this! I can't be constantly on edge and I can't be fully in this, this, whatever it is."

"But you said, about the baby, you said…"

"I can't make a life changing…." his eyes drew tears as she read him cover to cover and added, "… a life ending decision without knowing all the facts. Besides, I know you want it and I can't hurt you like that. I don't want to hurt you at all but I also don't want to build a new relationship with you as the Olivia I am right now."

"No, no you can, we can, we….

"No! No we _can't_ Elliot! And even if we could I don't want to. I want it to be real; I want it to be how it was supposed to be. I don't want to build a new relationship I want our old one back…." she was crying now, ignoring hot tears slipping silently from both eyes in desperate, defiant unison, "…. and I want to be _your_ Liv again not this shell of a person, not this shadow I've been left with."

"You have no idea how badly I want that too."

"You chose me over Ryan. You know I would never have taken that shot. I don't know much but I know that you and I have always been on the same side…." pausing, meeting his eyes, her voice broke as she shrugged, "… even if it's the wrong one."

"His name was Joseph Hollister…."


	9. The Story Of Who I Am

**Thanks for the feedback re: separating off dialogue. I try to add in lines to mark the change of scenes but I'm not sure whether they are working or not. Either way I will try to make it more obvious in the writing. Thanks as always for reading, and it's really helpful and encouraging when you leave reviews x**

* * *

"Say something, Liv…." said Elliot quietly, when the silence was becoming unbearable, "… say anything."

She just stared, long and hard, deep and distant into the night. Standing at her apartment window she could barely make out the stain glassed mosaic of city lights, a kaleidoscope of life in her eyes. Olivia wasn't completely sure she could speak yet, and had been focusing in the long minutes since Elliot had last finish talking on forcing slow breaths in and out. She had to slow her heart down, she had to quieten the pounding in her head, the racing in her blood. She felt like she was either going to explode from the inside out, or completely cave in on herself.

Elliot stood quietly nearby, far enough away to allow her space but just close enough that he could reach out and touch her in a heartbeat. He hadn't understood why the therapists and medical advisors had been so keen that her memories return gradually, peppered between therapy sessions, safely underpinned by her recovery programme. He had gone against that and now she was visibly in freefall. He felt as though he were standing waiting to catch her, unable to sense or second guess in which direction she might land. Holding his arms open desperately hoping that fate, or God, or something bigger and beyond him would intervene and stand between her and total disaster.

"That's why she drank."

"I suppose so." She hadn't been asking a question but he felt compelled to respond instantly. Elliot swallowed slowly, seeing her hands trembling at her side before she balled them to a fist.

"My father was a monster and my mother a rape victim."

"Survivor…" he said poignantly, and it cut him deeper than he had ever felt pain before to see the word fail to resound in her.

"I need to be alone now."

"I can't do that."

"Please?" she asked, still keeping her eyes fixed on the distance. "I just really need to be by myself with all this."

"Liv I will do anything, get you anything, give you everything you need and ask me for. I just can't leave you alone right now. Not after everything I've just told you. I'm sorry, but no. I can't."

"Can't or won't?" she challenged, frustrated.

"Is there a difference? I'm not leaving. Don't you get it? If anything happened to you I…." he trailed off, not even wanting to give voice to the thought, "… so I'll take the couch and you can close your bedroom door. We don't have to talk. You can pretend I'm not here. But I _am_ gonna be here."

"Okay."

"Okay?" he asked, as much as he was forcing his presence upon her and as unwavering as he was in his resolution to do so he still needed her to assent.

"Okay…." she said quietly, reluctantly meeting his gaze and then repeating with a tempered gratitude, "… okay."

She walked away slowly, her bare feet padding slowly to the bedroom where the door closed slowly and silence reigned. Elliot heaved a sigh and cast his eyes around the room for something he could use as a blanket, settling on a cardigan draped over a nearby chair. He propped a cushion against the arm of the couch and curled his leaden legs up onto it. Exhaling wearily he drew the cardigan around himself and felt his heart drop and stomach lurch, it smelt of her, it smelt of a perfume he hadn't noticed her wear since the shooting. The scent was so evocative it took him back to stolen moments on the job, precious nights he got to stay with her until dawn, and to a time where he had believed happiness to be finally within reach. Now it felt further away than ever, and there was more distance between the two of them than there had ever been before.

He was finally drifting off into a bleak sleep when a quiet mewing brought him back to himself, moving from the sofa he wandered closer to Olivia's room and closed his eyes unable to bear the stifled choked sobbing coming from inside. Steeling himself he raised his hand to knock, and then decided against it. Turning around he slid down the door and crumpled into a seat outside of it. He stayed there, unmoving, the alpha male guarding indomitably until dawn.

* * *

"Look if Afia says she didn't see his face or anything identifiable, there's no CCTV, no witnesses, no prints, and he's got a stone cast alibi that we can't disprove I just don't see how we…."

"Okay, okay hold on a minute Debbie Downer how about we just wind back and take those one at a time?" interjected Mackenzie, eyes wide at how her new partner had just barrelled through the case and obstinately shut down every single line of enquiry.

"Do we believe she didn't catch anything on the visual or is she just running scared?" offered Fin, throwing a ball between his hands and leaning back on the legs of his chair. "You think it's worth getting her back in and coming at it from another angle?"

"I can give it a go if you'd like?" offered Mackenzie, leaning forward with her elbows braced against her knees.

"Because you think you can do better than Fin and Munch?" snapped Elliot frustrated.

Fin looked to Munch and Munch to Fin and they exchanged wary glances. Mackenzie was young but she wasn't as green as some of the new detectives they've worked with. If Munch was honest with himself she wasn't as green as he remembered Benson being in the early days. She wasn't tall but she carried muscle well, and fiery red curls were tied back tightly in a band struggling to hold them. After a few hours on shift they escaped, and framed a milky clear Irish complexion and determined green eyes. She was friendly, warm, but it was clear she was holding herself back. She knew that she had something to prove and it was neither down to being new, nor being a woman. She was the backfill for Detective Benson and it had taken her all of seventeen seconds to work out just how big the shoes were that she was stepping into.

"No, asshole, because I wondered whether given what we know about her background she might feel more comfortable talking to a woman."

"Okay, okay guys how about we just take a breath here and…" seeing where this was going Fin rose from his seat and attempted to diffuse the rising tension.

"I still think we're on the road to nowhere."

"So what we just tell Afia we're giving up and…."

"Guys!" insisted Munch, but his attention was firmly directed at Elliot who for so many reasons was both the one causing the issue and also the one who ought to know better. He was the experienced detective, and, if they were being honest, he was the bear with the sore head.

"I need some air and some lunch. I'll be back for the Cap's briefing in twenty."

"Stabler don't just walk…."

"Stabler can I have a word before you step out?" asked Cragen. His office door had been slightly ajar, and his ears had pricked at the sound of raised voices and his most volatile detective running long on his leash.

"Something wrong Cap?"

"I was actually about to ask you the same thing. Shut the door."

"Captain…"

"I'm sorry that wasn't a suggestion…." said Donald Cragen, lifting his expression and furrowing lines into his well beaten brow. "Shut the door Stabler, and take a seat."

"Something on your mind?" asked Elliot, but then said nothing further on seeing the look of disgruntled concern on his boss' face.

"Actually yes. I had thought that I'd be safe throwing Detective Mackenzie in at the deep end, given that she had such an experienced partner to work alongside. Big case, but a group effort: it would help her gel with the team. I didn't count on her partner tearing her limb from limb on day one and barking at her like a jackal in the middle of my squad room!"

"What happened yesterday was a misunderstanding and whatever the hell Fin has told you is total…."

"Fin hasn't said a word."

"Munch then?" asked Elliot, feeling the rocks begin to fall away beneath his feet and struggling to regain his footing.

"I chose Mackenzie because she's no shrinking violet. She's a rookie but she's earning her stripes through hard work. She has good instincts that she's not afraid to voice. If you were prepared to meet her even halfway then you'd stand a chance at seeing that for yourself."

"What happened yesterday was a total misunderstanding and I apologised, sincerely, to her Captain. I flew off the handle and I owned that. I'm sorry."

"You have _got_ to get over this Elliot or I can't have you here. I need you to start seeing Aubrie for what she is and not what she isn't…." with a heavy sigh Cragen rubbed his temple, and then locked Elliot's gaze deliberately, "… or rather _who_ she isn't."

"That's not what this is."

"Of course it is."

"Cap…"

"And I understand. We're all feeling it. But we have to separate out personal feelings on what happened to Benson, and how badly we all feel her absence, with the operational needs of this squad. That, and what is professionally fair to a fellow detective. Mackenzie deserves better and I'm here to ensure that she gets it…." carefully, deliberately, choosing his words Cragen added, "… for as long as she is here with us."

"Roger that, Cap. Loud and clear."

"Good."

"I'll square things away with her and it won't happen again you have my word."

"Elliot?" said Cragen, as his detective rose from his seat to leave. Elliot sat back down, a little harder than he had intended.

"Yeah?"

"How is she?" the concern etched in every line of the Captain's face moved Elliot profoundly. "I mean how is she really? Because you'd know."

"Would I?" laughed Elliot grimly.

"I think sometimes you all forget that I've been a detective longer than all of you…." drawing a thin lipped smile Cragen added, "… and that there's a difference between not seeing something and turning a blind eye."

"I…"

"I don't want to talk about the past. Right now it makes no odds to our day to day business. That's a conversation for another time. What I'm asking I'm asking as a friend, as her friend."

"She's good, she's fine, she's…." locking his jaw around a rush of emotion, pushing everything that was about the bust the dam back down as hard as he could. "There's still so much she doesn't remember and that's hard."

"For everyone."

It was a simple two word acknowledgement that meant more to Elliot than he would ever feel comfortable putting into words. He felt his shoulders relax slightly, his fists unclench, his guard drop a little. It was alien to him to accept anything even remotely close to paternal care or concern from anyone, not least his own father, but there was something in the kindness of Cragen's eyes that spoke to his desperate exhausted heart in that moment.

"Elliot I gotta ask…." leaning forward, resting his elbows against his desk Cragen weighted his question, "…are _you_ okay? Are you handling this? Should I be worried?"

"Are you asking as a friend still or as my boss?"

"Would it garner a different response?" then not needing to wait for an answer the Captain exhaled uneasily. "Elliot I've known for a long time that two of my detectives were closer than perhaps they ought to be. I let it go because it worked, because you and Benson are an exceptional team and we were helping more people leaving you together than separating you. I let it go because I trusted the pair of you to have the good sense to never let it affect your ability to do your jobs."

"I thought we weren't having this conversation?"

"We're not, well, what I mean is this is off the record. This isn't about work, or what happens when Benson comes back, _if_ she comes back. This is about the here and now. This is about me seeing one of my squad, one of my friends, tearing himself apart. I need to make sure you're okay Elliot and not just that you're fit to carry your shield and your weapon."

"We were closer than we should have been maybe but we didn't cross the line. For a long time we didn't cross the line. Until we did…." confessed Elliot, seeing no gain for himself or for Olivia in continuing to deny the obvious to Cragen, "…. and once we had there was no crossing back."

"I see."

"I'm sorry, Captain. I'm sorry that we broke the rules. I'm sorry that we kept it from you. I'm sorry that we behaved unprofessionally and as a consequence probably at times made decisions differently on the job that we would've otherwise. But I will **never** apologise for caring about her. I won't ever apologise for loving her, for being _in_ love with her, and I won't ever deny it again. Not ever."

"I have to ask…." the words came out with crackled edges, so moved was Cragen by the younger man's words and the power of his feelings towards Olivia, "… she's pregnant?"

"Yes, yeah she is and she knows she needs to have a conversation with you about that. It's not a secret."

"And the father?" he wouldn't have asked if he didn't already know the answer, it was no great shock. What surprised Cragen, taking him completely aback, was the speed and the resolution with which Elliot answered him.

"Me. It's mine. I'm the father. Olivia is having my baby."

* * *

"You heading out?"

"It's been a long day. You?" asked Fin, gathering up his coat and rummaging through the sea of papers on his desk in search of his cell phone. "Munch?"

"Sorry I got distracted. I just keep rolling this back around my brain trying to figure out what we've missed. Because we have missed something. This isn't as impossible as Stabler thinks it is and I'm not ready to tie it off in a bow just yet."

"Stabler's mind is elsewhere. He wants it to be impossible so he's brain doesn't implode."

John Munch laid down his pen and the wad of paperwork in his hand. Sitting back in his chair he looked to his partner and attempted to read his face.

"You know something I don't, partner?"

"A lot of things, I'm smarter than you. You wanna be more specific?"

"I haven't called. I haven't visited. I've left it too long now."

"Nah, nah you haven't…." said Fin kindly, draping his coat over his arm but with no intention of leaving as of yet, "… call her, John."

"I'd just be another stranger she has to try and…."

"You'd be another friend and she needs all of those she can get right now. Besides, who's to say what she does and doesn't remember, or what she might remember if she saw you. You're a sting in my tail most of the time but hell if you wouldn't be my first call in a crisis. Call her."

"You're hiding it well but Stabler isn't. How bad are we talking?"

"Physically she's fine and most of the time you forget she's not herself. She looks the same, same smile, same humour. Then she'll say something or just look at you a little too long and you remember. At first they said it'd probably right itself in days, then weeks, now hell knows how long it'll be before she gets her full memory back."

"How's she coping with it?"

"You'll find out when you call her. Or just drop by, that works too, you know where she lives."

"Can I ask you something? Something I should probably be aware of so I don't put my foot in it as per my usual MO?"

"Sure?" offered Fin, perching back on his seat to give his full attention to the conversation.

"Benson and Stabler?" he asked simply, and for several long moments the pair just looked at one another. All that needed to be said passed safely between them. "So that's why Stabler's coming completely unglued. I've never seen him so rattled and for him that's saying something."

"I reckon he would've lost his mind over this either way, but yeah."

"Do they know that we know?"

"He doesn't, and she doesn't even know most of it herself. I mean she does, but I reckon she's about as hazy on the details as we are right now from what I can tell."

"What a mess."

"That, my friend, is the understatement of the century."

"I should've been there for her. I feel awful. I've let her down in the worst possible way."

"Nah, nah that would be if you weren't there for her now making up for lost time."

* * *

Uncrossing her legs Casey refolded them the opposite way, holding her hands clasped around her knees as she sat on Olivia's couch. When Elliot had called her and told her that he needed a favour she had asked a million questions of which he had answered only a handful. He needed someone to drop in on Olivia while he was at walk, and hang out with her as long as she would tolerate it. It wasn't until she had arrived at the apartment and it had taken her over ten minutes to even gain Olivia's agreement that she come in that she began to understand the depth of the situation.

"Shall I make us some coffee…." said Casey, when she could no longer bear sitting in the festering silence any longer. Olivia remained indifferent and continued with her mindless task of ironing a bedding sheet that was already creaseless. "No milk, humph. I can drink it black, can you?" she asked, hanging on the refrigerator door handles.

"Casey you really don't have to stay."

"I want to!" said Casey brightly. "This is fun!" that was beyond an overstatement but she wasn't quick enough to catch the words before they burst insincerely from her mouth. Chewing on her cheek, she put her head back into the fridge and groaned under her breath.

"Seriously, I don't need a babysitter I'm fine. I'm just not the greatest company right now that's all."

"Okay, look, how about we just put something on the television while this brews…" said Casey determinedly. Flicking through the channels she found a house renovation show that felt sufficiently innocuous as background noise. Olivia packed away the iron and folded the sheet carefully.

"Can I ask you something?" said Olivia suddenly, and Casey had the feeling she was joining a conversation already happening in her friend's head. "We've known each other a long time, right? What would you do if you were me?"

"That's a big question Olivia."

"And something tells me you're rarely gun-shy so that's why I'm asking you."

"I'm guessing that if I were you in your shoes right now I'd be pretty confused. I think it's an impossible question to answer though without knowing what's going on in your head. Is it getting any better?"

"I guess that depends what you mean by better. I'm piecing more things together but the more I do that the less sure I am that it's a good thing."

"You mean you don't want to remember?"

"Would you?" said Olivia, folding her arms across her chest and meeting Casey's eyes.

For a moment Casey just stared back, attempting to read her. So much had happened, there were so many complex facets to the life that Olivia Benson had led. As her friend she knew that the result of all of those things was a person with more empathy, reliance and capacity to love than anyone she had ever known. Yet knowing all that Olivia had been through and the heartache she had endured, the pain, the trauma, it was impossible to not at least hesitate before answering. She recognised ultimately however, that without every thread, ever stitch within the tapestry Olivia would never be completely herself.

"I would."

"Really?"

"I know it's hard, brutal even. I get that I really do. I can't even imagine what it must be like for you now, or now intimidating it must be to know that there are still things you don't remember. But you have to trust, Liv. You have to trust that despite everything, _because_ of everything you are the most incredible person. The people in your life would die for you in a heartbeat because of how God damn fantastic you are. And I include myself in that."

"Wow." The sweeping statement, its enormity and scale was overwhelming to Olivia.

"And if you don't fight to remember it all, good and bad, then you'll never know how important the people in your life are to you. And speaking of Stabler…."

"What about him?" asked Olivia, watching intently as Casey poured their drinks.

"If you say jump he will _always_ ask how high."

"I'm coming to realise that."

"Or over which hurdle, or off which cliff…"

"That's what I'm afraid of…" said Olivia quietly, gratefully accepting a steaming mug of coffee and hugging it in her hands uneasily.


	10. I Had Some And Then None Of You

"Why here?"

"You live near here don't you?"

"Close enough but I could've met you anywhere in the city…." said Casey, sitting with Olivia and staring at the imposing frontage of Columbia University standing proud in the low winter sun. "Why here? Why Columbia?"

"The way that you're asking me that question so unsubtly makes me think you already know the answer, councillor."

"What's going on, Liv?" said Casey, turning to her friend with concern.

Olivia looked better than the last time she had seen her, visiting at her apartment. A little of the colour had returned to her cheeks and she seemed a fraction less exhausted. Casey watched as her friend's eyes cast soulfully around the campus, her chin tucked into the material of her thick black scarf.

"I had to come here. I had to see for myself where this all started."

"You remember your mother?"

"There are so many things I wish I could ask her. I guess she never really came to terms with what happened or she wouldn't have drank the way she did. I don't blame her, even with how things turned out. It's strange to think how it was the same for her; one moment sent her down a completely different path from the one she was on. Maybe it was premeditated and she was the target, or maybe she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Either way her life was forever changed."

"Like yours was?" said Casey after several moments.

"I keep trying to picture what it would've been like if it had played out differently. If I hadn't hit my head. The bullet was in and out my shoulder and its healed fine. I would've been back at work by now. Elliot and I would be together making plans for the future and the baby. It's not so hard to imagine. Especially not around him."

"So you _do_ have feelings for Stabler?" asked Casey, raking a handful of blonde hair from her face as they strolled side by side. She turned to Olivia and thought she caught an almost blush, or the closest Benson would ever come to one.

"There's a spark, an attraction. I felt it the first time I saw him. I knew what we'd been to one another by the way he looked at me and the way it made me feel. The way it still makes me feel."

"Isn't that enough to keep you together until you remember the rest of it?"

"I thought so, really I did. And maybe it would've been if it'd only been a matter of days, weeks even. I see it in his eyes, I see in his face how much history there is between us. He knows me inside out and back to front and how I would react to things, what I'd do or say. It's such an easy, natural dialogue but I've forgotten my lines. The whole time he's looking at me waiting to see me looking back and I can't. She's not in there, that woman he loves. And I don't know how long it'll be until she's back, or if she ever will be. We can't start fresh because he can't forget everything that's happened, and we can't continue as we were because I can't remember it."

"Wow, wow I don't even know what to say."

"Neither do I…." said Olivia quietly, staring into the distance and adding, "… apart from that we can't keep on playing pretend."

"Have you talked to Stabler about this?"

"Not yet."

"Because it'll break his heart, you know that right?"

"I wish I could change things. You have no idea what I'd give to fix this."

"What about the baby?"

"I've been looking into options. I mean it's his child, so obviously if he wants to raise it then that's totally his call. That would be my preference. If not then I've gotten some advice on what the adoption process would be…"

"Olivia no, no…." stopping dead in her tracks Casey reached a hand to her temple, shaking her head in disbelief.

"What? Look I swear if you're about to tell me how much I want this baby, how much I've waited forever to be a mother then I'm not having that conversation. I get that that might have been the case before but things have changed. Like I said, everything has changed."

"I'm assuming you haven't talked to Elliot about this either?"

"Do you want to sound a little more judgemental Casey? Because you're really being no help at all right now. I'm not a defendant. You don't get to put me on the stand."

"I'm just afraid for my friend is all…."

"I get that, and believe me I really am try into see this from Elliot's point of view. It's why I stopped considering a termination. He gets an equal say in what happens to the baby, of course he does he's the father."

"I wasn't talking about him, Liv. It's you I'm scared for. I'm afraid that you're throwing away everything you've waited so long for, everything you've ever wanted. And then one day you'll remember everything. You'll remember who you are and how much all of this means to you and it'll be too late. You won't be able to get any of it back. I'm not judging you, I swear. I'm your friend and I'll support you in whatever you want to do but I won't ever stop being honest with you. And I think you're making a huge mistake."

* * *

" _Did you manage to sleep at all?"_

" _Barely, I couldn't switch off. I just keep thinking that we're missing something. Something small, something that seemed insignificant when we were talking to Luis and Carla. Something that would tell us where she is."_

" _You still favouring the idea that Sara ran?"_

" _Do you still think she was taken?" said Olivia, answering his question with another question as she gathered herself up from the breakroom cot and twisted her hair into a clip._

" _I'm not sure what I think anymore. This all seems to be getting greyer by the minute and I'm scared we're running out of time. We're past the 48 hour mark now, right?"_

" _Almost."_

" _What'd you want to do?"_

" _Elliot about last night…."_

" _Last night?" he asked, almost comical in his attempt to remain nonchalant. He knew exactly what she was referring to, it had been plaguing his every thought too._

" _I know I got out the car suddenly and it probably came across as though I was upset or mad at you or something. Which I wasn't, I'm not. So just wanted to clear the air."_

" _Consider it cleared…." he said, pausing for a moment before adding quietly, "…everything okay?"_

" _Yeah, yeah fine."_

" _Sure?"_

" _I don't know…."_

" _Talk to me, Liv. What's going on?" he knew exactly what was wrong, and he had a fairly good idea of what was going on. It was more a matter of whether either one of them was finally ready to acknowledge it, to call out its existence: to address the elephant in the room by name._

" _I don't know El…." she swallowed slowly, remembering their painfully near miss in the squad car the previous evening, "… you tell me?"_

" _It was late, or early, depending. We're both over-tired and…." but then he stopped himself and fell quiet. Sighing steadily he wandered over to the break room cot and took a seat beside Olivia. Leaning forward with his elbows against his thighs he sat in silence._

" _Elliot?"_

" _I can't do this anymore, Liv."_

" _Can't do what?" she asked with a hushed rasp, sliding her hands under her legs to hide the fact they were shaking._

" _Last night, last week, the last twelve years….." turning his head sideways he caught her eyes and smiled knowingly, "… the way you're looking at me right now."_

" _I don't know what you mean."_

" _I think that you do…." he said almost under his breath, reaching out a hand and tracing her jaw lightly with his fingertips, "…and I'm really hoping that you feel the same way."_

" _If we do this we can't ever undo it. Once we go there…." tilting her head, feeling the skin of her cheek melt into his warm palm, "… there's no coming back."_

" _We have to be really sure we want to step over that line."_

" _Yeah…" she murmured, removing her hands from under her thighs and reaching one to his wrist. Wrapping her fingers around it tightly she held fast. "Do you? Want to?"_

" _Step over it? Liv I wanna sprint so damn fast over that line there's…." but his sentence was ended by her lips on his, the kiss that followed crushing any doubt in either of their minds that this was not only what they both wanted, but what they needed._

"Liv?"

"Captain!"

"Everything okay?" he asked, worried that he had startled her. "Fin said you were waiting for me in the break room. I didn't mean to give you a start. We were using my office for a little impromptu interview."

She wondered whether he could tell how hot she had flushed, how warm she still felt. He wondered whether he could see in her face that for a few moments previously she had stepped into her old self and lived and breathed memories so real she could still feel them on her skin.

"I just wanted to come in person and say that I've thought about what you said in your e-mail and I'm sure. I want to continue my personal leave for the duration of the pregnancy and leave things as open ended as possible for any return here."

"That can be arranged. I have to ask though, Liv, is everything okay? Only you don't seem yourself…" hearing what he had said play back in his mind Donald Cragen cursed himself under his breath, "… I mean you don't seem, well…."

"It's been a difficult time."

"I can't imagine how hard this is for you. Is there anything I can do?" he asked, knowing Benson well enough to tell when she was upset. Something had rattled her, and he imagined it must be unsettling to be back here after the trauma of the shooting.

"Watch out for Elliot…." she said with a quiet sadness, bringing her hands to a fist as she remembered again the closeness she had experienced in this very room and felt a instinct to protect her partner, "… this is harder for him."

* * *

"I've been an ass."

"Yep, yep you have."

"I apologise…." said Elliot, his face held in a completely transparent state of contrition, "….unreservedly."

"Is everything okay?" asked Detective Aubrie Mackenzie, catching him a little off guard. He chose to take her concern as an acceptance of his apology, and that she would therefore not mind his taking a seat beside her at her desk.

"Look, Aubrie, can we just start again? Completely from scratch as though it's your first day and Cragen literally just told us we're gonna be partners."

"Sure, sure we can do that…" she nodded, a warm smile spreading across naturally rosy lips as she folded her arms across her chest, "… good to meet you Detective Stabler."

"So you worked homicide before, huh? That's no cake walk."

"It is compared to SVU."

"Yeah?" asked Elliot, shrugging back into his chair and tossing his leg up, resting his ankle on the opposing knee and stretching his hands up behind his head. "How so?"

"All the victims are already dead…." she said simply, but without a hint of flippancy, "… you don't have to look them in the eye. And they don't cry on you."

"That's fair I guess. How long were you there?" he asked, genuinely interested. She twisted a handful of flame red curls off her face and pinned them at the side of her head.

"Five years give or take, but I was ready for something new. The flip side of how difficult it is here is that you still stand a chance at affecting the outcome. The survivors are still alive to see justice done."

"I guess I hadn't thought about it like that…." smiled Elliot, finding it strangely refreshing and encouraging to see his job through new eyes. He had never doubted himself or his desire to stay in the unit, but it was nice to have an outsider's perspective from the other side of the fence.

"I got tired of feeling like I was always getting there just too late and that whatever we did would never be able to help the victim. It felt like we were a constant disappointment to the next of kin. At least here there's a fighting chance of you catching the perp and that allowing the vic to get some closure and hopefully move on with their life. I needed that hope."

"I guess we all do."

"What about you? You've been here a long time, huh?"

"Too long!" laughed Elliot, slightly evading the question but doing so with a warm enough smile that Mackenzie either didn't notice or didn't mind. "Most importantly – how'd you take your coffee?"

"Oh I don't drink coffee."

"You don't drink coffee?" repeated Elliot with genuine incredulity. "Then I don't think this is gonna work out between us, I don't think we can be partners."

"Don't be such a Judgy Budgie…." scoffed Mackenzie, rising from her desk and attaching her shield and weapon to her belt, "… and this is going to work out just fine."

"You reckon so?" he laughed, slipping on his jacket.

"Come on, I've set up an interview with a woman Afia took pre-natal yoga with. I'll drive."

* * *

"I can't get over it. Any of it, all of it. I can't get over it, or around it, or through it. I can't reconcile the person I am, the reality I'm in, with the person they tell me I am. I have horrific, breathtakingly vivid dreams of memories and fragments of my life to the point where I dread falling asleep. The pieces of my life that I've managed to claw together are violent and cruel and lonely and hopeless and the more I remember the less I want to. It's too much, it's too hard. The weight of it all is sitting on my chest and I can barely breathe. I can't handle living day in day out with these people, these wonderful, kind, loving people who are so desperate to have me back. Only I'm not _coming_ back."

"Is that something you've decided in your own mind?"

"I don't have control over my own mind anymore. That's the problem."

"There is no psychological or physiological basis for the assertion that you won't regain full memory over time."

"How much time?"

"That I can't answer."

"And that's why I can't do this anymore. I can't live every day as a total stranger in my own life. I can't continue to be a constant disappointment to everyone."

"Everyone is on your side Olivia and no one is expecting…."

"Yes they are! Constantly! And that expectation is _exhausting_ and want out. I am sick and tired of these people that care so deeply for me being hurt over and over again by the fact that I can't give them what they want, or be who they so desperately need me to be. I've rented a place on Long Island and I'm going away for a while."

"And you've thought about this?"

"Don't patronise me, of course I have. It hasn't been an easy decision, it won't be a popular decision; but it's the only decision. I'm sure of it."

"Will you continue these sessions with me? I prefer to see clients face to face but perhaps we could Skype or I can refer you to…"

"I really just need to stop….." her voice catching Olivia felt tears filling her eyes, as though every emotion she ever had was held so close to the surface it constantly threatened to escape, "… I need this all to stop."

* * *

"They're your favourite."

"They are?" said Olivia with an uncreative smile as she took the bouquet of flowers from Elliot. Seeing his face fall, she quickly added, "They are! They're beautiful. Thank you."

"No worries."

"Did you want to come in?" she asked, as Elliot stood in her doorway with his hands thrust into the pockets of his leather jacket. "I've just made soup if you're hungry?"

"You made soup?" he smiled, following her into her apartment and shrugging off his jacket. "What's the occasion?"

"No occasion, just boredom…." she breezed, wandering across to the stove and giving her creation a stir. "I go a little stir crazy and it's been so cold out wandering around the city holds less appeal."

"How're you doing?" he asked, longing for the familiarity between them that seemed to have gradually ebbed away the past few weeks. "Are you feeling okay? How was therapy this week?"

"I'm feeling fine, everything with the pregnancy is exactly as it should be."

"Liv I wasn't…." he stepped forward and reached out, she stepped back and held her hands at her side.

"Elliot I can't do this."

"I'm sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to…." his face twisted, his eyes filled with confliction, "…it's just hard to know what to do. How to be. This is getting harder not easier."

"I know."

"I want to help you, I want to be there for you. We were doing okay at first, weren't we? Did I do something? Did I upset you?"

"No! Oh no, no you're great…." sighing heavily she removed the soup from the stove and set it down on a mat. Putting the lid on it she turned off the heat and then turned to him and smiled sadly as she uttered the worst cliché imaginable, "It's not you, Elliot, it's me."

"Are you seriously saying that to me?" he scoffed, the last thread of his patience snapping. "Are you for real right now Olivia?"

"I'm not the person you need me to be and I can't keep trying to pretend. It's exhausting and pointless and it'll only hurt us both in the end. We can't just start over when there's so much water under the bridge, it would never work."

"What happened to us being on the same side? What happened to us being in this together?" he asked, incredulous. "What happened to all the things you said to me when you wanted me to play this your way? Now you're done even trying to meet me halfway?"

"It's not that, it's not as easy as…."

"Easy? Liv none of this is easy. It's damn near impossible from where I'm standing. I've tried everything I can think of to make this work. I've given you space, I've tried to bring you closer. I've held the patience of a saint when my insides were kicking and screaming with frustration and what now you just want to _give up_?"

"I can't give you want you want right now. Who knows if I'll ever be the person you fell in love with again. You don't think it's going to tear you apart trying to live with the version of me I am now? I see it in your face, in your eyes every minute we're together Elliot. You're hanging off my every word, every movement, waiting for me to remember everything."

"Because you will, any day now, something will trigger and you'll…."

"And what if I don't? Do you have any idea how it feels to be a constant disappointment? To see the look on your face when you bring me flowers that are apparently my favourite but I don't even like how they smell."

"Liv…."

"I need to go away for a while. I need to be somewhere no one knows me."

"And what about me?" he asked with a bleak shake of his head. "I've not said it, I've been so careful not to say it because that would be too much pressure and wouldn't be fair on you but what about being fair on me? I love you Olivia. I love you and I've given up everything to be with you and now you're just gonna walk away?"

"Don't do that! Don't you put that on me!"

"I know, I'm sorry, but it's true and…."

"I didn't _ask_ for any of this! If things were different and the shooting had never happened, if I'd never fallen and hit my head then I'd still remember everything. Everything would have happened just as it was supposed to and we'd be together planning for raising this baby as a couple completely happy. Only it **did** happen."

"I know that, God I know that."

"I don't feel the way you feel about me. I want you, I'm attracted to you, and it would be _so easy_ to let that be enough but it never would be. It never could. What we've been through together to get to this point is who we are, it's what our relationship is built on and I don't remember it all."

"But you will, in time you will, and…."

"I have pieces, pieces of memories and feelings. It's all confused, it's all a blur of moments and conversations and events. I don't remember the first time I met you. I don't remember how we went from partners to something more. I don't remember conceiving this child. Do you know how frightening that is?"

"I'm so sorry, I hadn't…."

"I know that there's something between us Elliot and I know that it's everything to you. I know it's everything to me too. I can feel it in my gut, I can feel you under my skin. That just isn't enough to carry on as though everything is exactly as it was before. It wouldn't be right, it would be fair to either of us. I have to do this. I'm sorry."

"What about _**me**_?" he chocked, echoing his earlier question. "I get it's what you have to do, that it's what you need. But what about me? What do I do?"

"I don't know."

"Do I get to know where you're going? Or for how long? What about our baby? It's my child too."

"Don't be like that…."

"Like what?" he asked, and she shook her head pleadingly to see tears filling his blue eyes.

"I wish that I could give you what you want. I wish that things were different…"

"Yeah…." strained Elliot, as hot devastated tears seared his cheeks but he staunchly refused to acknowledge them, "… yeah me too." Sniffing hard, refusing eye contact to as to not completely dissolve, he grabbed his jacket and walked briskly for the door. As the door slammed and she heard him emit a heart rending, gasping sob from the hallway Olivia sank down into the sofa and buried her head in her hands.


	11. I Don't Love You But I Always Will

"You are IMPOSSIBLE to work with Stabler!"

"Screw you!"

"If you can't hold your shit together enough to act like a fully grown adult then you can meet me back at the squad room. I'll finish this solo."

"Don't be ridiculous Mackenzie…."

"Me? **Me** be ridiculous?" she scoffed, wide emerald eyes boring a hole clean through him as she shook her red curls in fury. "You need to check yourself, Stabler. You're not safe to be on the job right now and it's _your_ behaviour that's ridiculous!"

"I'm sorry."

His uttering those two words shattered the tension that had been building between the partners all morning. Staring stunned, thrown completely by his frank and sincere apology Mackenzie froze in her tracks. Running her tongue across her lips, taking time to consider what to say in reply she couldn't find the appropriate words. She reached out and laid a silent hand on his upper arm and gave a quick squeeze. Then stepping back she met his eyes and gave a simple little nod.

"I'm not in a great place right now and it tends to bring out my inner asshole. You may have noticed."

"No, no not at all…." she replied, twisting her lips to a kind smile and rolling her eyes. "Look let's just take a beat, take a break. Can I buy you a coffee?"

"You don't drink coffee."

"No, but you do and I know a place two blocks from here that sells it strong and cheap. Plus they do a mean macha tea."

"A who now?" he puzzled, and she laughed at him. "What?" he added, feeling increasingly at ease around Aubrie. She was uncomplicated, she was as she first appeared, and she said what she had to say in simple terms.

"I wasn't intending to pry but I hear the guys talking. It's hard not to osmose the general vibe of what's going on here. It sucks, Stabler, and I'm sorry…." she said, tucking spring loaded curls behind both ears as they strolled side by side the couple of blocks to her suggested café, "… really."

"It's an impossible situation."

"She got hurt on the job right?"

"She threw herself between me and bullet and fell and hit her head on the way down. She hit it hard and it caused traumatic amnesia they said would be temporary."

"Only it's not turning out to be quite so temporary?" noted Aubrie, having heard Fin and Munch discuss Olivia's condition with varying levels of discretion in the squad room.

"We were partners for 12 years."

"That's a lifetime in this job."

"Right, right…." he nodded, relaxing into the conversation and finding it surprisingly easier to talk to someone who none of his history with Olivia than those who knew all of it. She gave of no sense of judgement.

"She's my best friend, she's…." realising he couldn't even begin to put into words what Olivia was to him Elliot sighed heavily, "… and now she barely remembers any of it."

"And she's pregnant, right? Cragen said that he'd need me to cover a full maternity leave."

"Yeah, yeah she is."

"Wow."

"She's wanted to be a mother for years. It's in her veins, it runs in her blood, you should see her with victims it's…." catching himself, feeling suddenly painfully self-conscious Elliot stopped talking. He felt as though somehow he were betraying Olivia in talking so candidly in front of Aubrie, who was still relatively speaking a stranger.

"I know how much she means to all of you…." said Aubrie, without edge or inference, "… you can really tell she's the heart of that squad room."

"Do you mind if we just stand here a second? It's kind of good to be just standing in the fresh air."

"Sure, sure no worries."

And so the two detectives stood together on the quiet street outside the little independent café Aubrie had brought them to. Elliot could smell the fresh coffee and pastries inside and it further eased his racing pulse and clenched emotion. He took long, careful breaths and found himself managing to shed the earlier rage he had worked himself into. He had been the cause of their argument and he was acutely aware of that fact.

"I was out of line earlier. I should never have gone off at you like that. You're right; I'm no picnic to work with right now."

"Were you ever a picnic to work with?" she asked after a few seconds. He turned to her to see green eyes looking confidently up at him. She was unhesitant.

"I guess I deserve that. No, no I would imagine Liv wouldn't give me a glowing recommendation letter most days either."

"I was kidding Stabler. Honestly I've rarely heard of two people being partnered for as long as you and Benson. You're not the worst."

"Thanks."

"Seriously though, that kind of bond? Whatever else was going on that kind of partnership is pretty damn strong. Stronger than a knock to the head. I'm guessing the two of you have weathered some pretty intense storms before. You'll do it again."

"You sound pretty sure for someone who just got here."

"I'm just calling it how I see it, working with the facts presented. That, and the fact that I don't think I've ever seen someone transform quite so completely when they talk about another person as you do when you talk about Olivia Benson. You're an angry, short fused Neanderthal with the emotional maturity of a gnat but…."

"Hey!"

"I exaggerate, I'm being unkind for dramatic effect. My point is that I don't know this woman from Adam but apparently she can melt Elliot Stabler like butter on a skillet. If she can do that and tough it out for over a decade in SVU then she must be pretty strong."

"She is."

"Strong enough to fight through a brain injury and come back swinging I'm thinking. Now can we go inside? My toes are numb and it's your turn to pay."

* * *

"All good?"

"You still here?" mumbled Elliot, his feet scuffing the walk from Cragen's office back to his desk. Collapsing into his chair he dropped his head into his hands and slumped his shoulders.

"You wanna talk about it?"

"Nope."

"A'ight suit yourself, but for the record bottling it all up hasn't worked out so well for you in the past."

"I gave him my shield."

"The fuck?" said Fin, genuinely stunned. "Have you lost your mind, what'd you do that for?"

"Because I couldn't figure what the hell else to do Tutuola. That's why. Yes, yes the answer to your question is that I've lost my damn mind."

"You're a good person Stabler."

"Am I?"

"Don't do that, don't throw yourself a pity party. I'm telling you, as someone with no obligation. As someone who previously thought you were just a hot-headed asshole. You're a good person. Olivia loves you and she wants to be with you. She might not know it, at least, not remember it right now but it doesn't change the fact."

"It changes everything else though. I'm not trying to shoot you down. I know you're right, I'm counting on it. I'll wait forever for her to remember, there'll never be anyone else for me but her. I just don't know what that waiting looks like, what _I'm_ supposed to do."

"Probably not quitting your job would be a start."

"I can't do this without her. I can't do any of it without her. I wasn't supposed to have to."

"And yet we are where we are."

"I've ended my marriage. I can't concentrate on the job and I'm driving Mackenzie crazy. I'm living in a shoebox apartment on a street that makes me glad I carry. I'm trying here, Fin, honestly I am. It's just hard to see the way out of this one."

"Don't give up."

"I get that I'm an asshole, I get that I'm an angry son of a bitch. Act first think later, impulsive, selfish even, and I try to own all that crap. Not proud of it but don't deny it. I can't asshole my way out of this. I can get as angry as I want but it doesn't change a thing. Olivia doesn't remember and I can't do a damn thing about that."

"You're giving it your best shot."

"What _can_ I do Fin? She doesn't want me around. I've tried. I've tried just about everything I can think of to speed up her memories. I've tried to just start fresh without them but she knew that didn't feel right and if I'm honest so did I. She might have forgotten but I haven't. Then there's the baby. I want that kid. I want that kid so bad it hurts and having a baby with Liv is about the best damn thing that could happen to me. Only she doesn't feel the same way. What do I do with that?"

"Shit."

"What?" asked Elliot, a little taken aback by the force with which Fin had expelled his reaction.

"You're right, is all. For the first time in, well, ever, you might actually be justified in punching out a few walls."

"Really?" it was almost unnerving to find himself settled on the same page as Tutuola and his expression betrayed as much. "Well, I guess, thanks, or whatever."

"What you doing now?"

"I dunno?" shrugged Elliot. "I guess since Cragen refused to take my resignation I've got to show up to this place again tomorrow."

"Damn right you do."

"So then I suppose I'm going home to reheat yesterday's pizza."

"Nah, nah you're not. Get your coat, we're going for a beer first."

"Yeah?" asked Elliot, a smile filling his face and surprising him.

It touched Fin to see the reaction. Though his relationship with Stabler had always been complicated there was no denying that this situation was an impossible one and it was hard to watch him cutting an increasingly lost and lonely figure. Grabbing his own jacket Fin reached for his jacket and rummaged in the pocket for his cell phone. Tapping out a quick message he fired it off to somewhere on Long Island: "We need to talk, can we meet?"

* * *

"Nice place."

"It's quiet, there's no one around really. It's a good place to think."

"And that's what you need right now?" asked Fin sceptically, standing at the window of the admittedly beautiful rental Olivia had found herself on the furthest reaches of the Hamptons. "To be alone with your thoughts?"

"At least they're mine…." she said quietly, carefully, "… it's better than being alone with everyone else's."

"Is that how you felt back home?" he said, because he needn't actually ask the question. It was evident in the way she talked. "I'm so sorry Liv. For all of this, it's nasty. I'm so sorry that you've having to go through it and even sorrier that you're having to do it on your own."

"I don't have to; it's just easier that way. You've all been so kind, it's so sweet how much you all care but it's also just so overwhelming. I left because I can't cope with constantly falling short of everyone's expectations. Being a daily disappointment is exhausting and I needed to step away from that for a time. No one's fault, nothing anything can do anything about. I'm not saying I have any answers it was just what I needed to do."

"I have to talk to you about Elliot, Liv. I'm sorry, and I realise now with what you've just said that I'm probably just piling on. He's just not doing so well and I don't really know how to help him with that. I think you're the only person who can."

"No, no the person I used to be is the only person that can. That's just exactly the problem Fin, don't you see?"

"I do, I do but…."

"I don't love him. I'm not in love with him. I should be, I was, I'm sure of it. Just right now I don't have it in me to give him what he needs. Sure I could pretend, it wouldn't be any great hardship because there's clearly chemistry between us. It just wouldn't be fair, on either of us but especially him. It wouldn't be right. For me it would be barely skin deep and for him it's everything."

"He's falling apart without you."

"And what that's my fault?" she snapped quickly, rediscovering her fight. "This is not on me Fin. I didn't ask for any of this and I am just doing the best I can. Besides, it took him long enough to decide that I was worth fighting for so…."

"Wait what?"

"Nothing, nothing…." she hurried, turning away and folding her arms across her now slightly visible stomach, "… ignore me."

"Liv?" asked Fin, feeling as though he were shaking at a branch and he ought to duck the falling snow it would unsettle. "Do you remember some more?"

"I'm just so tired of all of this Fin…." she sighed, closing her eyes and breathing slowly in and out, "… and I can't even begin to tell you how badly I want to just disappear and pretend nothing before right now even existed."

"You can't do that, you just can't."

"Can you honestly tell me hand on heart that you think I should just go back to the City, move in with Elliot and raise this baby with him no questions asked?" she challenged, and then waited just long enough for a veil to fall over Fin's expression. "I'm going to take that silence as a no."

"He loves you, Liv."

"I don't doubt that, but when in the history of the world was that ever enough on its own? When was it ever that simple or black and white? What I'm trying to say is that I don't remember all the grey that surrounds the way he loves at me and that scares me. That and the fact that you're not denying that there may well be more to my relationship with Stabler than he's letting on."

"You did remember something, didn't you?"

"It all just comes and goes, fades in and out. There isn't enough clarity to trust in any of it. Besides, any one moment, one event I remember is only one tiny puzzle piece of the bigger picture. And until I have all those puzzle pieces put back together I think that I just need to be on my own."

"You'll break his heart."

"You have no right to put that on me. It isn't fair, Fin."

"None of this is fair. I'm just trying to see this from both sides. Trust me, that's uncharacteristic. I've never been Stabler's biggest fan. It's taken me and him a long time to get to a place of begrudging fondness and mutual mistrust. These past few weeks though, I dunno."

"What?"

"I guess maybe I'm starting to see between the lines a little. I'm seeing the Elliot you've always seen. Damn it if I'm not warming to the guy."

"Yeah?"

"Whatever's gone before he's really thrown himself headlong into this thing with you. Not just because of the accident, you know that right? You know he'd already made serious moves towards separating with Kathy before the shooting? Before he found out you were pregnant?"

"I know he did."

"Now he's living alone in that armpit of an apartment alone. He's juggling the divorce, his kids, work. He needs you Olivia. He's running on empty because he can't figure out how to move forward with you, he can't be involved with this baby. He's all out on a limb and it's painful to watch."

"I'm sorry Fin but I can't. I really do feel awful and I understand how hard this must be for Elliot but…."

"No, no you don't…." said Fin quietly, realising for the first time the enormity of the partnership that was Benson and Stabler, "…. because if you did you couldn't do it to him."

"Did you just come here to make me feel even worse than I already do?" she asked, her eyes darkening as she stared at him long and hard.

"I miss you too, Liv. Maybe I did come here to guilt trip you and maybe that makes me a terrible person I don't know. All I know is that running away isn't the answer. You belong in New York City, you belong with us, and you need Elliot Stabler every bit as much as he needs you whether you realise it right now or not."

* * *

" _Go on say it I know you want to."_

" _I don't want to say a thing, Liv. I just came to bring you coffee."_

 _She knew he wanted to say that he had told her so, along with just about everyone else. When the fireworks and the screaming of Calvin's departure had died down, and he had left the squad room with Vivian there had been a kind of stunned silence. No one had known what to say, where to place themselves in the situation. Olivia least of all, and so she had simply removed herself from it and barricaded herself in the break room hoping never to emerge. Elliot fetched coffee, and immediately put himself in the only place he knew, the only place he wanted to be. In that moment, and in every moment from then on. Seeing the look on Olivia's face, the horror in her eyes and the anguish on her face as Calvin was wrenched from her arms confirmed to him everything that he already knew._

" _I can't go back in there. Not yet."_

" _I know that."_

" _But you don't have to babysit me. I'm fine."_

" _I know, but humour me…." he shrugged, clicking the door shut behind him and wandering over to her._

" _Thanks…." she mumbled, taking the mug from Elliot as he took a seat beside her on the break room cot, "… for the coffee."_

" _Can I take you home?"_

" _I don't need to go home; I told you I'm fine. Nothing to see here. We closed off a case is all. Calvin is back with his family where he belongs."_

" _Liv…."_

" _Don't."_

" _I know that…."_

" _I said_ _ **don't**_ _Elliot…." she snapped, turning her head and imploring him with tear jewelled eyes, "…. please?"_

" _Let me be there for you."_

" _El I can't do this right now. As you can see I've got enough going on today without trying to figure out whatever the hell we are. I can't take that on as well. I've lost Calvin. I've lost him. I got too attached against all advice and against my own better judgement and I got hurt. My own fault. Worse than that I've made an idiot of myself chasing after a child that was never mine to have out of some desperate need to be a mother."_

" _Don't do that, don't talk about yourself like…."_

" _Cragen said it. He said it straight to my face. He warned me and I still went there. He called it early, he could see that I was crossing the line…." hesitating, she masked a hiccough of emotion and worried at her mouth with a trembling hand, "… and why."_

" _I feel such a fool…." she whispered, turning again to him and seeking the comfort she always found in his vivid blue eyes, "… I made myself a fool."_

" _Okay, okay I'm done with you fighting me, come here…." said Elliot, taking the mug from her hand and laying it down on the floor. Reaching across her lap he dragged at her wrist until she was in his arms, folding her into his chest he planted a firm kiss against her hair. "You're no fool, Liv. Anyone who loves as hard and as unconditionally as you could never be anything but completely beautiful. And damn lucky is the kid that gets you as its mom one day."_

" _I could see it in his face. Right from the second I met him."_

" _Calvin?"_

" _It grows inside of you. Butterflies at first maybe, fluttering, always unsure, the ground beneath you always a little uncertain. Then over time they get bigger, they beat their wings faster. It's not hesitance its fear. You're not just waiting for it to happen you're certain it will. The volatility, the crushing disappointments, people leaving, never knowing what or who to trust. The wings beat so hard in your chest you can't breathe, it hurts. You're terrified it'll always be that way. And you feel so alone."_

" _Olivia…."_

" _Vivian was a mess not a mother and I could see in his face how desperate he was to feel safe. To feel his feet on the ground. To have someone else carry the basket for a while. I just wanted to be that someone. I just wanted to be that person for him."_

" _Let me carry the basket, Liv?"_

" _What?"_

" _Let me be that person for you?" he murmured into her hair, pressing kisses against her head between words._

" _I can't. We can't. Whatever this is or isn't, whatever it could be there's too much confusion. We're partners. You're married. It'll end in disaster."_

" _What if we just forget about all of that stuff for a minute?" he asked, and siting up she pulled away from him far enough to meet his gaze. "What if we just let it happen and see where it goes? Because I don't know about you but these past few weeks have been agony for me and it's only getting harder. Most days it's just about bearable but days like today? I can't pretend that it doesn't tear me up inside to see you hurting. I can't pretend that this is just concern for my partner or even my friend. If you hurt I hurt."_

" _One kiss is just that, it's one kiss, you could call it a mistake…." she swallowed, close enough for him to feel the heat of her breath on his cheek, "… but what you're talking about is an affair."_

" _It wasn't a mistake."_

" _You're married Elliot."_

" _I don't care. I know that makes me a terrible person. Unforgivable. But nothing else matters to me when I'm with you. And it's where I want to be. Every second of every day…." brushing a curtain of hair from her downward turned face he lifted her chin and kissed her gently, "… with you."_

" _People will get hurt…." she said, her lips tingling with how wrong and how right it felt._

" _I know, you're right, maybe we shouldn't…." he sighed, pulling away from their embrace and leaning forward. Dropping his head in his hands he held his head cupped in them, closing his eyes and breathed slowly in and out._

" _I don't think we can stop this. I know I couldn't even if I wanted to…." she spoke softly, that caramel rasp in her voice that made the hairs at the nape of his neck stand on end, "… and I don't want to."_

"And so it became an affair. I was so naïve, so selfish and blind. I was so convinced that it was inevitable. I was so sure that by that point we had no choice, but I was wrong. There's always a choice. I could've transferred out. I could've left the city. There were a million ways I could've stopped it right there before it went any further but I didn't want to. I wanted him, to the exclusion and the expense of everything else."

"But you said that you were here on your own?" he said.

"I am."

They had only been meeting, sometimes by coincidence, sometimes on purpose, for a few weeks and he had come to know not to push her. Though it sometimes led to long silences and breaks in their otherwise easy conversation there was something that told him to proceed with caution. There was more to Olivia than met the eye.

"Matthew can I ask you a question?"

"Sure, sure fire away?"

"If Chloe had woken up after the accident but hadn't been herself. If she could've physically recovered from her injuries and ben otherwise healthy, but she'd lost herself."

"What's the question, Olivia?" he prickled, knowing they were swimming out beyond the buoys into uncomfortable water.

"I don't know."

"If Chloe had woken up after the accident but hadn't been herself. If she could've physically recovered from her injuries and ben otherwise healthy, but she'd lost herself."

"What's the question, Olivia?" he prickled, knowing they were swimming out beyond the buoys into uncomfortable water.

"I don't know."

"Because I think the answer is that I would give **anything** to have her back, no matter what that looked like. I can't imagine what this is like for you but if you're trying to ask me if I think my wife is better off dead then no."

"Oh God! Oh God that wasn't what I meant at all!"

"Wasn't it?" he challenged, and because they were until recently total strangers he could do so guiltlessly. Shrinking back in her chair Olivia felt shame, because that was exactly what she had been asking, and what she had been questioning within herself.

"The more I remember of him, of us, the more complicated it all seems to get."

"All relationships are complicated, because humans are complicated. It doesn't make them less worthy of existing or less worth fighting for."

"I'm so sorry for what I said before Matthew. I can't imagine the pain you must be in."

"I can't imagine the pain this Elliot must be in either. The idea of Chloe being here, but not really here. The thought of her looking and feeling exactly the same but not being able to remember us, or who I was to her is horrible. Truly it its. Only you know what's worse? Her not being here at all."

"I'm sorry…."

"Stop apologising! To me, to him, to everyone. You survived, Olivia. That's a good thing, that's a miraculous thing. Don't lose sight of that."

"How do I tell him? How do I explain to him how alien this all feels? How unsure I am about everything. I'm attracted to him, sure, and maybe sometimes there's a shade of something beyond that but I don't know. It doesn't sit still enough for me to grab it. Beyond that I'm just not comfortable in all this the way he is. It's not easy, it's not familiar. He looks at me and I just feel this overwhelming pressure. The weight of it is crushing me. Being the person he left his wife for, being the person he's having this baby with, I can't handle it. It's too much."

"Like that…." said Matthew, with a tilt of his tan face, "… that's how you tell him. That's exactly what you say. What you just said to me."


	12. It's A Long Road Baby Running Away

_**I just wanted to add a quick note to thank all those of you taking the time to read and especially to leave a review. I was a little intimidated starting a new story after a break from writing, especially one with the scope and complexities of the plot I'm creating here. Your support is everything, and so thank you and please do continue to leave me your thoughts and feelings as it is really helpful with the writing process.**_

 _ **Also on a practical note I hope things aren't too hard to follow. I will be inserting flashbacks memories/moments within chunks of story as Olivia has them. Please let me know if it becomes confusing!** _

* * *

"I'll miss having you around."

"Likewise."

"You feeling okay?" asked Matthew, his hair a golden blonde as it caught the late winter sun. He leant heavily on Olivia's rental car and she felt him sharing her reluctance at their parting. "About going home I mean?"

"It's the right thing. It's the only thing to do at this point before any further damage is done."

"You have done _nothing_ wrong Olivia. Please keep reminding yourself of that when I'm not there to do it for you."

"I can't use the accident as an excuse to behave totally unreasonably. There has to be some compromise. Running away to the Hamptons and shutting Elliot out of my life, and this pregnancy wasn't a compromise it was cruel. I have to go back and undo some of that."

"Like we talked about though, right? This has been brutal on you too. You didn't create this and it isn't your job to fix. Don't compromise yourself, mentally or emotionally. It'll make you crazy in the end."

"And what about you? I'm not the only runaway, you have a home and a life waiting too."

"My home died with Chloe. She was my life, and when she went she took everything." He said, as though there could never be any more to say.

Standing for a moment in silence Olivia buckled slightly under the weight of Matthew's statement. There was such a lightness to his demeanour, affable and quick to smile. He made conversation so easy, he was familiar to be around even though she had only known him for such a short time. It seemed incongruous that that person could be carrying so much pain, could be so deeply torn apart inside. He wore his darkness on the inside and she felt privileged somehow that he had revealed it to her.

"Matthew that's just not true and you know it. There are so many people waiting for you back there. They just want to help. They just want to be there for you and help you to try and find a way through this."

"You can hear yourself, right?" he smiled, lifting his racket and so easily batting the ball back into her court. She smiled and rolled her eyes in defeat.

"Touche."

"I guess we both have healing to do. You know where the phone is though."

"Likewise. And you've promised to come to the City, right? If you're hell bent on staying here then you'll still have a lot of time on your hands so I expect a visit."

"When?" he asked, catching her a little of guard. Yet far from fearing his keen sincerity the prospect of something new, something fresh sparked a tiny flame of hope in her. It made the otherwise bleak and confusing return to New York City seem a little less hard to face.

"I don't know, soon…." she ventured, feeling what she could only appropriate as some strange guilt. Had she the right to look forward to seeing him again?

"Name the time and place and I'm there."

"You know you're the first person I've met in this strange new world. You're the very first friend this version of me has made."

"So we're friends?" he smiled.

"No, no sorry that was..."

"How about I give you this week to settle in and then you shoot me a message when you want me to come into the City next week? You can show me around as a local, take me to your favourite places."

"I don't really…"

"You can take me anywhere Olivia…." he cut in, seeing her flounder at the idea of having to remember, "… it'll be good to just hang out. Like friends might."

"Like friends might."

And with that she reached out and hugged him tight. Refusing to give the guilt legs, to allow it a voice in her head she took this new friendship for what it was. Easy, uncomplicated and something that belonged completely to her and not to the woman she had left behind.

* * *

"You didn't have to do that this morning."

"Do what?" asked Detective Mackenzie, the heels of her boots clicking rhythmically on the sidewalk as she and Elliot walked to their car.

"We both know that it was me that missed the thing with Carol. That was my bad, on me, but you took the rap with Cragen."

"You're being dramatic. That makes it sound like more than it was. I just let him make an assumption."

Heading decisively to the driver's side Aubrie climbed inside, adjusting the mirrors and seat as he continued to talk.

"An assumption that saved my ass when I'm already on a fairly short leash with the Cap."

"Whatever, no big deal."

He watched her check her teeth in the mirror, popping a piece of gum into her mouth before liberally applying chapstick. He wasn't sure whether to be insulted or relieved that for the most part she seemed indifferent to his present. She just did what she had to do, what she wanted, and kept her eyes on her own lane.

"I'm trying to thank you, you're not very good at being gracious are you?"

"About as good as you are at being grateful apparently."

"Hey, I'm trying here!" he laughed, buckling himself in and searching in the door compartments for any snacks he may have abandoned on a previous job.

"Look Stabler we're partners. I'm not about the tit for tat of who did what and when. As long as we get results, which we do, then that's the money shot for me I don't need to count the quarters along the way."

"You're alright Mackenzie, you know that?" it was a colossal understatement on his part but he wasn't about to make the moment awkward, or load their partnership up by admitting as much.

In his mind, however, he wondered how he would ever have muddled his way through the past month or so without the easy routine of working alongside her. She didn't ask awkward questions, she didn't dance around him the way the rest of the squad did. Though he knew that it was only kindness that lead them to do so, it was easier in a lot of ways to forget all that had gone before and just work cases with Aubrie as though none of the rest of his life existed.

"I'll remind you of that next time you're being an asshole."

"Macha latte stop before we head to Jersey?"

"Absolutely, I'll pull in if it's your round. Actually you know what I'll actually take a flat white."

"I thought you didn't drink coffee."

"I'm developing a taste for it."

"Yeah?" he asked, turning to her with surprise.

"Sometimes things that initially seem like a terrible idea start to grow on you…." she shrugged, holding his eyes just a little too long so as he felt as though he shouldn't, couldn't, or didn't want to look away.

"So a little bird tells me that we're headed to your home state…." he said after a few moments, and she put the car in drive and moved them away.

"A little bird has a big beak."

"Knowing where you're from is hardly some big secret. It's weird to do this job day in day out with a partner you know absolutely nothing about."

"What'd you want to know?" she shrugged, leaving an inviting silence afterward that left him suddenly speechless. He sat back in his seat and turned over the million questions he had for her in his mind, deciding which he should ask before they made their now semi regular stop for drive thru coffee.

* * *

"You're glowing!"

"Sorry I'm late…" mumbled Olivia in a rare show of self-consciousness as Casey embraced her on arrival at their meeting spot.

As each week passed she felt her body changing from the inside. Twinges, mood changes, insatiable hunger, no appetite at all, headaches, and the constant awareness that she was not alone. Despite the inner chaos, however, externally Olivia looked radiant. Her tan skin glowed from even the briefest exposure to winter sun, her eyes were bright and alive and her usual curves were enhanced by a slight bump that was increasingly visible under her coat.

"How are you feeling?"

"Hungry mostly. Once the nausea passed my body apparently decided to make up for lost time. I've been eating for at least five this past week."

"How is it? Being back?" asked Casey cautiously, as the two women both bundled up in all their winter layers walked through Central Park side by side.

"Pretty much the same as it was before I left…." answered Olivia ambiguously, hugging her hands around her steaming mug of herbal tea and wishing to high heaven it was coffee. "I don't think I'll settle back until I've spoken to Elliot."

"You mean you _haven't_ yet?" then hearing the judgement in her own tone Casey threw Olivia an apologetic wince. "Sorry, that was out of order. I just meant that you've been back a few days already. He must be wondering…."

"I'm sure he is but I'm also sure he's not going to like what I've got to say. I realise that putting it off doesn't make it any easier on him but I just needed to catch my breath."

"So you're gonna break up with him?" said Casey quietly, a sadness befalling her. "You're gonna tell him it's over?"

"Casey it never _began_ , don't you see that?" cried Olivia, removing one hand from her cup and throwing it in the air emphatically. "You can't break up with someone you were never with in the first place. This me, me, the only me there is now, is no more in love with Elliot Stabler than you are. Don't look at me like that."

"Sorry."

"I know you're just looking out for him."

"I'm trying to look out for both of you. I get why you have to do it. I just hate that this is where we're at…." her alabaster skins seemed even paler, as the reality of everything seemed to finally sink in for Casey. If she had had any grand ideas of matchmaking and sewing patches over the holes then they were fading rapidly.

"Believe me you're not alone in that. If I could wave a magic wand and remember it all I would. Only I can't. And if I've got to live this life then I need to be honest. I can't live a lie, I can't make believe the gaps. I have to start to try and rebuild with what I have."

"I get that, really, truly, I do."

"I'm not saying that I'm not attracted to Elliot. I'm not saying that I don't remember bits and pieces of our relationship, have scattered memories across the years. I'm not saying that when I'm around him I don't have this niggle, this itch, this sense that there's something more."

"I'm not shocked. The two of you have always had enough chemistry to power the greater New York grid."

"And yes there is a chance that if I threw myself headfirst, headlong into a relationship with him and just tried to fill in the blanks as I went then it would all work out. But Casey there's also a chance that it wouldn't. There's a chance that I still wouldn't remember, that I'd still feel out of my depth and that we'd both be totally devastated by the whole thing. If me doing this now is going to break his heart, then doing it after six months of playing make believe will only break it harder."

Taking several deep breaths, as though she had winded herself Olivia fell silent. Casey wanted to say so many things, and yet they all seemed futile or inappropriate. It was because everything that Olivia was saying was so right, so logical and sensible. And yet at the same time it was all so terribly wrong.

* * *

"Olivia."

"Hi…." she said, lifting a hand and bowing her fingers up and down. She felt as small as her voice in that moment, seeing his whole face light up to see her.

"Everything okay?" he was nervous, and it was physically painful to him.

Never in any moment of their time together had he felt this uncomfortable around her. Even in the past when they'd fought. Even when they had gone days barely speaking there had still been a silent understanding, a current passing constantly back and forth between them. They may have been temporarily apart but they had been forever connected. For the first time in that moment however he wasn't sure what to say, how to act.

"I've moved back into my apartment. I'm back in the City, for the foreseeable."

"That's great, that's good…." laughing under his breath, laughing at himself Elliot sighed, "… is it?"

"Elliot I'm just going to have to come out and say this the way I've been rehearsing it in my head because otherwise I might never find the words or the courage again. This is hard, impossibly hard, every single thing about this whole situation for both of us. I know what you need, I know what you want to happen; only it isn't going to. It can't. I can't get into this with you the way things are right now."

"I get that."

"I'm remembering things, slowly, and sometimes that's helpful and others it just makes things one hundred times more confusing. It's clear what I am to you, it's clear in everything you do and it's written all over your face. I don't know what I ever did to deserve that kind of love but it gives me hope. It gives me hope that one day I'll remember. I will remember _all of it_ and it will be as wonderful as I have come to understand it could and should be."

"Everything you ever wanted is right here waiting for you."

"I know."

"God, Liv. This is killing me, it's tearing me limb from limb I swear. A million times I thought about what would happen if we couldn't be together but I never imagined this…." shaking his head, rolling his shoulders, Elliot's voice broke, "… I never thought I'd see the stranger in your eyes."

Despite having vowed she wouldn't she felt a tear escape, silent and hot down her left cheek. He looked so tired, so deflated and lost and she had done that to him. The initial joy and elation he had had when she had woken up in the hospital, before the reality of her situation had fully come to light, was gone. She didn't remember and she wasn't going to anytime soon, that much was becoming clear. She had been watching grief paint complex patterns of black and grey across Matthew's face and it was devastating to see some of that now on Elliot's. He had lost the woman he loved too.

"I know how badly this is hurting you and I'm so sorry. I really am sorry for my part in that."

"Liv it's not your fault, none of this is your fault."

"Leaving was. I had no right to disappear like that without talking to you. I just needed to try to clear my head. It's so damn loud and I was barely sleeping, couldn't eat, most days I couldn't even see straight. It was wrong of me to run and hide the way I did though. Especially with the pregnancy…"

"I guess the baby is kind of a built in component right now so…."

"Yeah, yeah I guess it is…." she smiled, nervous at first, before it widened and hit the apples of her cheeks and the lines around her eyes. "I've booked a scan. I took Casey to the first one but I shouldn't have done that either. I'd like you to come with me to this next one. If you want to that is?"

"Want to? Liv are you kidding me?" he was somewhere between raw joy and frustration. She was looking right at him and yet couldn't see him at all.

"It's a week Tuesday and I can text you the details."

"I'll be there."

"Great."

"What happens now?"

"I guess that part is mostly up to you. Obviously you can be as involved with the pregnancy as you want to be."

"It's a baby, Liv. A child: our child. Talking about it as a pregnancy sounds so clinical."

"I'm doing the best I can."

"Do you even want this baby?" he asked, unable to lift the shot of distain and frustration from his voice. She did want it, he knew that, so why was she pretending? She wasn't pretending. That didn't make it any easier, or better; it hurt all the same.

"It's all connected, isn't it? Us? The baby? My not remembering how either happened. Elliot I can't give you what you want right now and I hate that I feel like I'm a constant reminder of that every time we're together. That it only twists the knife further for you somehow."

"I can change that. I can work on not making you feel that way. I can lock that down."

"Can you?"

"I can try."

"Okay, sure."

"Liv I can't make big promises because I've no idea what I'm doing here. I'm trying and I'll keep trying. I want to be there for you. Not just because of the baby but because of you. Because I _didn't_ forget."

"I know you didn't."

"I won't ever forget. This won't ever be anything less than it is for me…." lowering his eyes, he added under his breath, "…everything."

"Elliot…"

"I will be in your life as much as you will let me and in whatever way you feel comfortable. I just want you to trust me…."

" _I just want you to trust me."_

" _How can I?" she asked, removing his hand from hers as they sat together in the squad car supposedly staking out an old warehouse in Queens. "How can I trust in any of this?"_

" _You know how…." he said quietly, keeping his eyes on her though she refused to give him hers, "… because you feel the same way I do."_

" _Sometimes I wish I didn't."_

" _You don't mean that."_

" _Don't I?" she scoffed, pinching at the space between her brows and sighing. "Elliot we're barely holding this whole thing together. I'm constantly on edge, like it's only a matter of time before we do or say something that brings it all crashing down around our ears."_

" _We'll be more careful."_

" _More secrets, more hiding, more lies. That's not the answer, is it? That can't be the only answer. At least for me it can't."_

" _Liv you know how this is for me. You know the position I'm in."_

" _But do you have any idea of how this is for me? Have you even tried to see this from where I'm standing?"_

" _Of course I…."_

" _When we're together it's incredible. It's good, and it's right. Only it isn't right, is it, not really. We're doing wrong, we're doing so many people so much wrong. But even if you could put that aside. Even if you could forget about all of that what about me? What about me when you have to go home every night to Kathy? What about me when we can never spend any real time together that isn't ducking and weaving on the job? What about me when I'm the happiest I can_ _ **ever**_ _remember having been for these moments in time before it all disappears again."_

" _I wish it could be different."_

" _It's like trying to keep the waves on the sand Elliot. Only you can't. The ocean drags them back out with the tide and I'm just stood there feeling like a cheat, a whore and a fool."_

" _Liv don't say that!"_

" _Was this all a huge mistake, Elliot?"_

" _How can you even talk like this?"_

" _Because I lie awake at night and the guilt haunts me. You're not mine, Elliot Stabler. You never were. I wanted you so I took you but it was theft. It was theft and now the bounty over my head is a guilt I don't know I can handle. A guilt that I had an affair with a married man. Worse than that, a guilt that it isn't enough. I don't know why I ever thought it would be. Why I ever thought that I wouldn't want more. That I'd be able to cope with having some of you, when I need all of you."_

" _What do you want me to do Olivia? I can't leave Kathy. Not now, not yet."_

" _Not now, not yet, or not ever?"_

" _Is that what you want? Is that what we want? For me to leave Kathy, one of us quit our jobs. Have you even thought this through? Have you even figured out what that would look like, how it would play out? Because before I break those five children's hearts, before I ruin Kathy's life then I should probably have a loose idea of…."_

" _You asshole, you absolute asshole don't you dare suggest that I'm underestimating the damage that we could do to those kids or to your wife."_

" _So we are where we are Liv! You went into this eyes wide open just the same way I did and you have no right to talk to me about guilt now. We're in this, we're in this up to our necks and over our heads. We're drowning in it. So don't you dare talk to me about guilt because you're not the one who has to go home and sit at the dinner table with your own conscience every night."_

"Liv? Liv!"

"Sorry!" startled, she jolted back into the room and looked at him wide eyed and head spinning.

"Are you okay?"

"Fine, I'm fine. I was just…."

"You're remembering stuff, aren't you?"

"What did you think would happen? When we started this whole thing where did you see it ending?"

"Not like this."

"We walked so far to get here. I remember being exhausted. We fought about it, didn't we? You leaving your wife."

"Yeah, yeah we did and I really regret that."

"Maybe you shouldn't. Maybe it would've been worse if you'd walked away without hesitation, without looking back."

"I just didn't want to hurt my kids. Kathy is a good person, she didn't do anything wrong."

"I guess if you don't want to be the other woman, don't have the affair."

"We both know it's more complicated than that. Besides you were never the other woman to me. I'm fairly sure now that the second I met you, you were the only woman. It was only a matter of time, and me finding the balls to do what needed to be done."

"Are you hungry?"

"Hungry?" he asked, as though she had just slammed on the breaks and thrown him against the dashboard.

"I could just really eat Korean food right now and I was thinking, well, if you wanted to….." pursing her lips, taking a breath, she smiled levelly, "… we could get lunch?"

"Lunch, sure, I'm down for that."

It was so much more than lunch, they both realised. It was an olive branch, a hand outstretched, a show of trust. They were strangers in a strange land but Olivia was home, and that was the first step down this new unknown path.


	13. Nostalgia Isn't What It Used To Be

" _You've made me weak."_

" _No, no Liv…."_

" _Yes, Elliot! Don't you see that? I have spent my entire life fighting to be strong, resilient, to do this job day in day out looking evil and violence in the eye and refusing to blink. I didn't have a lot of things but I had that. That was who I had shaped myself into. That was who I had become, the person I had earned. That was who Olivia Benson was."_

" _It's who you still are!" he yelled, exasperated. He couldn't understand where this was all coming from, and why now. He had thought that they were on the same page and now suddenly it were as if she were reading a different book entirely._

" _No it isn't! Don't you see that? I second guess now, I question myself. I check my phone a million times a day to see if you've messaged or called. I lie in bed after you leave wondering what it is that I could do that would make you stay."_

" _Liv…."_

" _Tearing myself apart trying to figure out what, if I did it differently, would make you put_ _ **me**_ _first. I feel inadequate, I feel like I'm not enough. I feel less of myself, less of a person. I feel smaller, that's who I am now. And you did that to me. Being in this relationship with you did that to me."_

" _I don't know what to say. I never meant for that, for any of it. I don't it's fair to put all of that on me. I didn't force your hand, we both wanted it. We both went into this eyes wide open. You knew I came with baggage and you knew we'd have to carry it between us."_

" _It doesn't change the facts."_

" _I don't know how to fix any of it."_

" _We both know that there's only one way to fix all of this."_

" _I need more time, Liv. There's a lot going on at home right now and leaving Kathy now would devastate them. Kathleen is struggling, Dick is…."_

" _I get that, truly I do. And I need you to trust that I'm not doing what I'm doing to force your hand. That isn't what this is. I'm just doing what I know you won't, what you can't. I wish I could give you more time El but I can't. This is changing me. And I don't like the person it's turning me into."_

" _What are you saying?"_

" _I blink."_

" _Olivia?"_

" _I'm saying that this, us, it's over Elliot. We have to go back to just being partners."_

"You're quiet today."

"I've got a lot on my mind."

"Is that the understatement of the century or?" laughed Fin kindly, breaking the muffin he had bought and offering her half.

"Can I ask you something? You don't have to answer but…." she hesitated, taking the muffin and sinking her teeth into it.

"What is it? What's going on?"

"How do you see her? Me, well, the Olivia you knew before the accident. Tell me about her?" and then swallowing slowly she gradually found her way to the question she was really wanting to ask. "Was the relationship I had with Elliot, whatever it was, good for me?"

"That's a big question."

"Is it something I _want_ to remember? To potentially get back into?" reaching for her coffee mug she took a sip. Deliberately holding Fin's eyes and leaving him unable to look away. She needed his honesty.

"You know I don't really think that's something I can answer. I don't think it would be my place even if I could."

"I don't know what to do Fin, about any of it. I don't know where to even start focusing my energy. It's like everyone has their own take on this, their own reasons for wanting me to go a certain way. I don't mean that the way it sounds it's just…."

"Ultimately everyone look out for themselves?" he shrugged, unflinching at her accusation. He had long since learned it to be true of all humans, whether he loved them or not.

"Elliot clearly loves me, he wants me back. He wants me to raise this baby with him. You guys al want me back at work, you think it's where I belong. And Matthew…."

"Matthew, huh?" he asked, seeing her face lighten a shade. He smelled smoke.

"I think that something could happen there if I let it. Maybe it would be a terrible idea. Maybe it would be him rebounding from the loss of his wife, perhaps too soon. All I know is that when I'm with him I get a sense that he wants more."

"And do you? Want more with him?" asked Fin.

It was a strange moment for Fin, alien, unfamiliar. His gut turned over on itself because he didn't want her to answer. He knew the answer to her original question. She belonged with Elliot. The old Olivia, the whole Olivia, the one who remembered everything needed to be with Elliot Stabler and yes, yes it was good for her. The relationship with him was twisted, plaited into every fibre of her being. Only he couldn't say that, so he said nothing and waited for her to reply.

"I can't go there. Not right now, not when I'm this confused. It wouldn't be right; it wouldn't be fair to him."

"That's not the same as not wanting it though, right?"

* * *

"It was never about me doubting us. It wasn't about me ever thinking, even for a moment, that I could ever be happy without you. I knew I couldn't. I knew that the life that I wanted, that I needed so badly, was with you. I just couldn't figure out how to get there. I couldn't see a way out of the mess I'd gotten myself into and yeah, yeah I guess I was afraid."

"You don't strike me as someone who scares easily."

"There're different kinds of fear. On the job, in dangerous situations when the adrenaline's going on and it's about quick decisions and fearlessness I'm your guy. That part never bothered me."

"You were a marine, right?" asked Olivia, running to catch up with the way Elliot's words were running away with their conversation.

"Sure, sure but that's different. The fear of hurting someone you care about? That's a whole different kind of scared. Being terrified of failing: as a father, as a husband, just as a man. I wanted to be selfish. I wanted you. I wanted you more than anything. I wanted to load up the squad car, grab you and go. Not even look back once."

"I wanted to be selfish too. I wanted to force your hand. I wanted to push you to choose between me and her, between me and them. Because I think I knew deep down that if I did then I'd win. You'd choose me."

"A million times over." He said without hesitation, without breaking eye contact.

"Only it wouldn't really have been winning and I knew that. So I broke up with you, didn't I?" she asked, playing with the hair elastic around her wrist distractedly.

"You remember?" he breathed, almost afraid to say it.

"I remember and I remember that you let me…" she continued quietly, her mind clearly elsewhere.

"Liv…." he could see she was hurt, hurting all over again.

He wasn't sure how long he could continue reliving old pain as her memories filtered back slowly. They were forever reopening old wounds, pushing salt into them. It was torture and it was constant. It was exhausting.

"You let me go."

"I thought it was the right thing. I thought it was the only option we had left. I thought it was what you wanted."

"I wanted you to fight for me Elliot! I wanted you to fight for us!"

"I **did** fight! Or don't you remember that part?" he scoffed unkindly. He didn't care. This was hurting him too and as much as he loved her, he didn't like the fact that he seemingly got no allowances. He was being held to a higher standard despite having already paid these dues.

"How dare you, how dare you…."

"Because it isn't fair to have this fight now, now when you can only remember the bad bits and the parts I screwed up. Liv if you only knew how hard I fought. If you only knew the nights I lay awake trying to figure out how to make everyone happy, or at least how to reduce the collateral damage. And that was my kids, by the way, the collateral damage. My kids and their mother."

"I remember how badly it hurt me when you left my apartment. I remember how hard I cried."

"I can't do this, I can't have this fight with you or I'm gonna say something I regret."

"So you're just gonna walk away?"

"What like you did?" he shot back, blue eyes piercing unrepentantly through the space between them.

"That is _not_ fair."

"None of this is far Olivia. None of it's fair. None of it makes sense. I did fight. I did leave. I destroyed my marriage, I broke my kids hearts. I did all the wrong things and all the right things and nearly killed myself in the process. And then finally I was there. I was out the other side and I was free. I'm free to give you everything you wanted, everything you deserved."

"Elliot…"

"And I've got a rental flat in my name and a ring in my hand and I look around and I'm alone. I turn around and you're gone. The shooting's happened and none of it matters anymore. And you're angry with me because you think I didn't fight and that's all you remember."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I…."

"Yeah, yeah so I am Liv. So am I."

"Elliot? Elliot!"

"I can't be here anymore I have to go."

* * *

"Thanks for today."

"No, no thank you. I now know more about baseball than I ever cared to but I'll sure as hell impress my Pop next season."

"Are your family big fans?"

"He is, sure. My mother never could understand the fascination. She's just there for the snacks…." rummaging in her purse Aubrie retrieved a chocolate bar and then widened green eyes with a flash of a smile, "… as am I."

"You don't talk about your family much."

"Maybe it just didn't come up."

"If you ever want to, you know, talk…." said Elliot quietly, hunched up over his desk.

He was working late, avoiding going home to his soulless apartment. The empty shell of what almost was but now seemingly could never be.

"You're giving me a strange look. It's the same one Fin kept giving me so I'll tell you the same thing I told him. I'm no great enigma, there are no skeletons in my closet I'm afraid."

"No?" he couldn't help but smile at her succinct delivery and the way she slung her purse over her shoulder so matter of factly. He believed her.

"I guess it kind of comes with the territory in this unit. Everyone has their thing, their reason for being here and that's fine. I wish I could give you something. Unfortunately I'm as boring as they come."

"Just because you don't have a broken marriage or scars from childhood trauma doesn't make you any less of a detective. It doesn't give you any less reason to be here than anyone else. And you aren't boring…." leaning back in his chair, Elliot threw his hands behind his head, clasping them behind his neck and smiling broadly, "… you're anything but, Jersey girl."

"I'm not all Jersey. I'm a full half Irish, does that make me more interesting?" she offered, taking her purse back off her shoulder and tossing it and her coat down onto her chair. Wandering around her own desk she took up a perch beside him, leaning against the cluttered sea of papers he had been ignoring for weeks.

"Half Irish, huh? Is that where Mackenzie comes from."

"Oh, no actually I think that's Scottish, or maybe Gallic is all the same. Jeez, I dunno, somewhere my ancestors are turning in their graves at my ignorance either way. My Dad is Jersey born and bred and I have no clue where his name came from."

"So it's your mom's side that's Irish?

"My mother was raised in a tiny town no one has ever heard of in County Kildare and she's _damn_ proud of it, so she is."

"You can do the accent…." grinned, Elliot, as Aubrie expertly twisted her tongue to the Irish lilt.

"Hers hasn't softened an inch since the day she left the Emerald Isle and I was raised a good Irish Catholic. That's despite mine and my sister's best efforts to shame my poor Ma into giving us up as lost causes of course."

"I was raised Catholic too. I think I sufficiently convinced my mom I was a lost cause years ago though. You still believe?"

"I don't know how much I ever believed. Even Ma wavered in her faith with everything that Ireland suffered. I'd like to think there's some higher power watching over us though."

"I try to keep faith. Can't say it hasn't been tested."

"How are you doing with all that?" she asked, seeing the veil of sadness fall back across his face. She could lift it briefly, she had come to realise, but it was always temporary reprieve.

"Not good, honestly."

"Have you spoken to her much lately? I know things weren't good after she first got back."

"There just isn't any talking to her, that's the problem. She's done, she's got her space and I'm just left to figure out what to do with that. She's starting to remember more and more but it only seems to make things worse. She remembers the negatives. She remembers how hard it all was."

"It's a complicated situation."

"Yeah…." he said, but when he went to speak again his voice cracked and he hurriedly bent forward over his desk. Hunching his shoulders Elliot covered his face with his hands, mortified at the sudden rush of emotion.

"It's okay…." said Aubrie quietly, reaching out a hand and placing it lightly on his back, "… there's no one else here."

"I'm such a fucking idiot…." he mumbled, sniffing loudly and pressing his fingertips hard against his eyes to attempt to stem the tears he couldn't hold back.

"You are **not** an idiot. Not for loving her and not for crying about the whole shitty situation. I don't give a damn if you ugly cry all night I've got no place to be."

"Aubrie I'm really sorry this is…."

"This is long overdue is what this is. You've been holding all this in for too long."

"Yeah."

It was all he could manage to say, talking hurt, it burned in his throat. Everything hurt. His chest was tight, his muscles ached, his head was throbbing along with his heartbeat and he was completely exhausted. Aubrie reached quietly across and placed her arm around his shoulders, drawing him a little closer until his cheek was resting on her chest. Resting her chin on the top of his head she held fast while Elliot cried.

"I can't just give up on her but I can't keep doing this either."

"Maybe you can find some kind of middle ground. Just until she remembers?"

"Is that a thing?" he laughed sadly. He had stopped crying now but didn't want to move.

"Has to be worth a try, right?" she asked, pulling away and looking down at him as he collapsed back into his chair. "Because even though it might make me really unpopular around her to say it this is killing you Stabler; right now loving her is destroying you."

* * *

" _Holy crap I'm getting old!"_

" _Shut up!" gasped Elliot, leaning heavily against the dilapidated building through which they had chased their suspect. "You were all over her, you out ran me by like four blocks. I'd have lost her, hundred percent."_

" _Yeah well maybe my gym membership isn't entirely going to waste after all." Olivia laughed breathlessly, hands on hips watching the marked cop car pull away from the abandoned warehouse sight._

" _I wholeheartedly concur…." he replied, the corners of his mouth twisting to an appreciative smile as his eyes drank in the view. She turned, looking back at him over her right shoulder and deliberately not moving an inch._

" _Shut up…." she said, with absolutely no conviction what so ever. Slowly she turned, keeping her hands propped on her waist. Tilting her head to one side she just stared back at him, both challenging the other one to make the next move._

" _You know it'll take the unis a good 45 minutes to get Marybeth back to the precinct in rush hour traffic. We'll probably get caught in it ourselves. Makes sense we sweep the area for anything we've missed, see if we can wait it out a little."_

" _Sure, sure that sounds like a good shout."_

 _Breathing and heart rates returning to normal the partners walked side by side back along the sidewalk. It was a rough few blocks and they were unloved and abandoned. Litter scattered, broken bottles and other miscellaneous trash kicked about in the wind. The walls of the disused warehouse were scrawled with graffiti and the door was barely clinging to its hinges. Elliot held it back for Olivia to step inside._

" _You think this is where Marybath's been hiding out?" asked Olivia, surveying the dank and miserable scene before them. It had been a long time since this was anything beyond a lonely squat._

" _Most likely. Food wrappers, foil, is that a sleeping bag over there? Fuck, Liv, needle…." he gasped, grabbing for her wrist and dragging her backward with force._

" _Thanks._

" _Watch your step…" he ordered. It wasn't mere passing concern; he needed her to be safe. She nodded, meeting his gaze and then and looking to the wrist he was still holding fast._

" _What?" he asked, releasing her and rolling his shoulders with a staunch sniff as he made step away and continue looking around._

" _El?" she said softly, barely a whisper despite there being no one else around._

 _She walked slowly back toward him and reached a hand to his shoulder, then lifted the other to hold his jaw steady while she kissed him long and slow. Feeling his lips draw to a smile against her own, he relaxed immediately and encircled her waist with his arms. Returning the kiss slowly at first, he soon caught the wave and let it carry him, opening his mouth and holding her tight against his chest._

" _My God you're incredible."_

" _I've been waiting all day for this…" she murmured back, burying her face in his neck and breathing him in. Like a junkie high on a strong hit she lost herself in the smell of his skin, still hot from their earlier chase, and the aching masculinity of his aftershave._

" _Same."_

" _You think they'd notice if we just never came back to the squad room?"_

" _I think they might."_

" _Damn it…." she smiled. She had been doing that a lot lately. This was a million and one kinds of wrong but she had never felt this happy._

" _Actually through I'm thinking to get the most out of cuffing Marybeth we should probably interview her tonight. Write it all up. Maybe we'll get on a roll. Maybe we'll end up working pretty late."_

" _Kathy?" she asked, but refused to allow the weight of the name or the question to fall squarely. His arms around her felt too good for that, too right. She already had the idea of working late in her head._

" _First time I'll have worked late this week and her sister's over tonight anyway. She'll barely notice I'm not there."_

" _Okay then._

" _Okay then…." he echoed, tracing his index finger around her hairline, down her cheek, before pinching her chin and drawing her back in to kiss again._

" _We should head back. I think we've seen all we need to here."_

Reaching down Elliot grappled around at the side of the couch he must have fallen asleep on searching for his phone. It's buzzing had woken him up and he squinted down against it's harsh blue light to read the message flashed up on screen.

"You awake?" from Liv New Number.

"Yeah. You okay?" he typed back.

"I know it's late but can we meet?" sitting up now he blinked repeatedly and rubbed hand across his clipped hair. Hesitating a moment, but only a moment, he shot back a reply and got up from the couch.


	14. Like Paper Cuts And Iodine

"Thanks for coming over. You must think I've lost my mind messaging you in the middle of the night."

"It's fine, no worries. What's going on?"

"I'm so sorry Elliot."

"For what?"

"For everything, for all of it. For how I've treated you, for how I've behaved since the shooting. I've just been so blinkered. I haven't been able to get far enough out of my own head to see this from anyone else's point of view and sure as hell not yours."

He sighed, heavily, the profound sense of relief he felt at hearing her speak the words seeping through every muscle and bone. He was tired, he was more tired than he could ever remember being. No sleepless nights with fretful babies or long hours on boring stake outs could compare to the twisting agony of waiting for Olivia to meet him halfway. And yet somehow the relief didn't resonate the way he had thought it might. It didn't feel like the opening of the door he had thought it might, but instead the waving of a weary white flag.

"You don't need to apologise. This is an impossible situation for all of us and we're all just coping whatever way we can."

"I'm starting to remember things…." said Olivia cautiously, watching his face for a reaction. His blue eyes just looked so very tired as he sat beside her on her sofa. She twisted the sleeve of her sweatshirt over her fingers.

"That's great." He said, because it was.

"It's still slow, patchy. I hate that sometimes I feel like I can't trust it. It's so hard to tell memories from dreams. To tell what actually happened from what I just wanted to and imagined somehow. It's still really confusing but I'm trying to just go with my gut. To focus less on what I think about it all and more on…." hesitating a moment she stole a sidelong glance across at him, "… on how things make me feel."

"That sounds really positive. It sounds like you might be making some real headway. You still doing the therapy?"

He wished he knew that, he still wished so desperately that she came home to him after those sessions so that they could debrief. He wished he wasn't asking these questions and feeling like a total stranger in her life. Yet the space between them only seemed to grow, and he could barely remember now the time when he knew her every thought.

"Yeah, yeah I am…." she felt like something was on the tip of her tongue but she couldn't quite figure out what. "Elliot I remember things about us."

"Us?" he swallowed, they had been here before.

In the early days every time she mentioned remembering something about him, about the two of him, his heart clenched in anticipation. He felt excited, hopeful, like they were on the cusp of being able to carry on as they had before. The more time that had passed however, the more that excitement had given way to a gnawing sense of unease. Nothing was ever clear-cut, and the fragmented pieces of her memories only seemed to pile a new stone on the wall building between them. He had come to dread her remembering the tiny pieces. Like if she couldn't remember it all then it was futile and only doing them more damage.

"I'm starting to feel…." slowly, carefully, she felt her way in the darkness, "… what I'm trying to say is that I'm starting to feel just how much this all means to me. I care about you Elliot, very much."

"I care about you too, Liv."

"And I don't want to hurt you anymore, so I'm going to try and make this better. To do better. I want to try and make this all easier on you, to give you what you need. I wanted to start by apologising and, well, I was wondering if we could maybe start fresh?"

"Sure, sure we can do that." He said, brightening slightly. Her heart leapt, and the flash of hope she felt took her by surprise.

"I know that we've got the scan this week but maybe we can grab lunch one day? I miss that. I've missed you. I don't know that that's a memory, or something I forgot, it's all just such a mess at this point. All I know is that I'd like to spend more time together. If that's something that…."

"Liv I'm here for you, you know that. All the way, any time and any place. It's really good to see you finding your feet a little. I'm here for that, I'm here for all of it. Anything you need, and we can start to talk about what happens when the baby comes. Anything for, either of you: always."

"Thanks, really…."

"I'm your friend, Liv. That has _always_ been true and always will be."

"My friend?" she swallowed, the words almost inaudible. He pretend not to see the strange and distant hurt in her eyes. "My friend…." she repeated, forcing a reluctant smile and deliberately keeping her eyes trained on the floor to stop the wandering into his. Looking for a change of heart.

"I think that it would be really, just, just better for both of us if we…. "

"Elliot?" she asked, when he seemed to have ground to a halt.

"I just felt like it needed saying, I feel like it needs saying. We've tried to force this, to rush back in and pick up where we left of. It was a disaster. You bailed and I fell apart. We can't let that happen again."

"No, no that makes sense."

"It's too much pressure. It's all just too complicated, too confusing right now. Besides, look how much better you are since you stopped focusing on that and just gave yourself some time and space."

"Right, yeah, yeah so much better." She managed to sound just sincere enough to convince him, but deliberately kept her eyes locked on the wall over his shoulder.

"Liv?" she couldn't put that pressure back on them, she couldn't complicate and confuse things further. No matter how much she suddenly realised she wanted to.

"Thanks for coming over. I'm glad we got to talk."

"And well keep talking, huh?" he said, reaching across and placing his hand over hers.

It felt right, it felt to fit. Curling his fingers around hers he held tight.

"Yeah, sure, of course we will."

* * *

"So you remember?"

"No, no not everything. It's still patchy and confused. But I remember enough to know that I can't go on a date with you."

"A date makes it sound very formal. I was just thinking we could grab dinner, you know, see how things go."

"But we both know where things will go, or, at least…." hesitating, fairly sure her gut feeling was right but frightened of appearing awfully over confident Olivia ventured, "… at least I think I know where you are hoping things might go."

"Am I that transparent?"

"No, no I just…."

"Damn it."

"You know it's actually one of the best things about you. You wear your heart on your sleeve and that's pretty hard to do."

"Where's your heart at Olivia?" he asked, and caught her off guard. She looked over at him, and her eyes lingered on his.

"I don't know."

"But you have an inkling?"

"I'm sorry if I've led you on, Matthew. I know I invited you to come to the city. I really did want to spend time with you. I just don't think I realised, well, it's been…."

"It's fine, don't worry about it. I get it. You think I've not been totally messed up since Chloe?"

"It's not really the same thing…."

"It's close enough. Something life changing like that happens and you lose your balance. It's hard to figure out what you think and how you feel. Making good choices kind of seems to become more about luck. For a while at least."

"That's how I feel. Like I've lost my balance."

"So you and Elliot, huh?"

"No, no actually."

"Really?" he asked, wondering if he ought to feel ashamed for how relieved he felt.

"We've decided that it better that we're friends right now, just friends. It's all gotten so complicated and I think at this point everyone is just exhausted. We need to just take some time. So we're not together, at least, not like that. We're just trying to figure out how to do the right thing with the pregnancy."

"That's tough, that's hard, incredibly so. I mean all this going on. So much to figure out and all these emotions flying and in and amongst all of that you're having a baby together. You know I gotta ask…."

"Ask what?"

"When I asked you where your heart was at before. Is it with him? I get that you're not together but are you remembering what you feel about Elliot?"

"I…."

"Are you in love with him?"

"I have to let him go. Even if it's just for now. Elliot's a simple guy. I mean he's complicated in some ways but at his core, really, all he wants is to just do right by the people he loves. He just wants to be a good partner and a good father. He sees things in black and white and I am just a thousand and one shades of grey right now. I don't even know what I'd be asking for, not really. So I'm going to be his friend."

"And the baby?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know as in you haven't figured out the logistics with Elliot yet or…."

"I'm not ready to be a mom. I'm barely managing to function as a person right now. I can't be responsible for someone else."

"You know I'm no expert in this area but I'm pretty sure if you asked any first time mom how they felt at this stage in their pregnancy they'd probably say the same thing. You're what? Six months gone?"

"There isn't much I remember clearly but I remember my mother. I remember what I felt about her as a child, as a teenager, and I remember what I felt when she died. She was the name on my phone I dreaded seeing and I hate myself for that. I have these dreams, these incredibly vivid dreams of screaming and crying and violence and resentment. She tried _so hard_ and I know that. I appreciate all the things she gave me: strength, resilience, independence. But they aren't the things that a seven year old needs. A seven year old needs a hug and she just wasn't capable of that."

"Oh Olivia…." sighed Matthew, not able to find the right words to respond. So instead he reached out, took her in his arms, and held her tight.

* * *

"Okay, so, let's see how we're getting on here. This will feel cold…."

"You okay?" asked Elliot, shifting his weight between feet as he stood anxiously waiting beside the bed.

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine thanks…." replied Olivia. One hand down at her side clutching the edge of the bed and one holding up her shirt as the midwife massaged a cool gel about her abdomen with the ultrasound wand.

"You know you can sit down there, Dad, if you're feeling a little jittery."

"Oh me? Yeah?" it was unlike Elliot to be flustered by something like that. Olivia wasn't sure how she knew that but she did. Whether she was remembering or learning she was getting better at reading Elliot's cues. "Sure I can sit."

"And there we go, there they are…." flashing a grin, the midwife held the wand steady a minute as the black and white image on screen pixelated slightly and then gradually settled down.

"It looks like a little kidney bean. I'd forgotten that, how tiny…." murmured Elliot, his blue eyes wide and entirely transfixed on the screen, "… wow, just wow…."

"Is it okay? Is it…."

"I'll do my full due diligence in a second but everything looks a-okay to me. We're a good size, eyeballing us, and we're moving around and we're bigger than last time. Here, if you take this, I'll leave you for a second while I go grab…."

"You okay?" asked Olivia, not really caring where the midwife had gone or why only glad that they were alone. "Elliot?"

"Sorry, hi, hey…." snapping back into full consciousness of his surroundings Elliot stayed with his elbows leaning on the side of the bed but turned his eyes to her. "Yeah, yeah I'm fine. Are you?"

"I think so."

"It's kind of crazy when you see it like that. The baby. It's so real."

"Yeah, yeah it is…." she said, not quite sure how that made her feel. Her chest felt tight, clenched, everything was tense. It was too real.

She was carrying a child, a human, a life for which she would be responsible. Suddenly for the first time this was becoming more than a pregnancy. The final point of this stopped, for a moment at least, being about having a baby and more about having a child. In a matter of months she would be a mother. She wasn't ready for the enormity of that role, she hadn't had chance to rehearse, she hadn't had any training or chance to learn by example. She didn't know her lines. A cold sweat washed over her and she felt suddenly light headed.

"Liv it's gonna be okay. I know you're freaking out, but you don't need to. We've got this…." Reaching for her hand he enveloped it in his, then reaching out with his free hand he brushed a curtain of hair back out of her troubled eyes and vowed, "… I promise you."

"Do we?" she laughed grimly, rolling her eyes shaking her head. "Only I'm not so sure we have a clue what we're doing here honestly."

"So we'll make a plan. We'll figure it out. We'll take it step by step, day by day, one thing at a time."

"I guess so."

"Step one is easy. Well, I mean, not easy. I didn't say that right. What I mean is there aren't really any choices in it. God willing the baby is getting born whatever."

"Easy? Is _that_ your assessment of child birth?" she asked, and just for a brief moment, a chink of light, a slither of hope that sardonic smile was the old Liv. He had her there, for a second, and then as quickly as she came she was gone again.

"But I'll be here, right here: holding your hand the whole time."

"And what about when it's born then what? We didn't even have that conversation. We don't even know what happens after that."

"We roll up our sleeves and shit hits the fan. Literally from memory, along with just about every other nearby surface. Only it's not so very complicated, Liv. I promise. Babies are exhausting and demanding and maddening but they're tiny. They're tiny and they don't ask questions. We just gotta keep him or her fed and clean and safe. That's step two."

"And you want that?"

"Want what?" he puzzled, struggling to read the expression on her eyes or the mist in her eyes.

"I mean, well, I guess I'm asking if that's what you want? Is that what you picture happening? You and I raising this baby together?"

"Don't you?" she did not, he could see that now. His heart fell seven stories and threatened to take his lunch with it.

"Well what about the fact that we live in two separate apartments for a start?"

"Babies are pretty portable."

"What about work?"

"You'll be on maternity. I'll take what paternity and personal time I can and we'll figure it out."

"What about Aubrie?"

"Aubrie?" he asked, as though she had thrown the brakes on the conversation and he had winded himself being hurled against the dashboard. "What's Mac got to do with anything?"

"I don't know, I just…."

"Olivia do you even _want_ this baby?" he sighed, frustrated, but still gripping tight to her hand.

"How can you ask me that?" but she was failing to convince herself, and he knew her too well for her question to be anything close to reassuring.

"Oh my God…."

"What?"

"That's it, isn't it. That's what all this is about. You throwing up all these practical obstacles, thinking up all the ways this isn't going to work. It's because you don't _want_ it to work. You're not into this are you? You're not on board at all?"

"I just don't feel anything Elliot. I want to, desperately. I want to be so excited, I want to have that same look in my eyes that you do when you look at that screen." He noted, suddenly, that he hadn't seen her look at the screen, at the baby, at all.

"You're just scared. You're just stressed and scared and I get that it's all pretty overwhelming right now but…."

"What if I can't do this? I'm not being trite. I mean it. What if I can't be this child's mother? What if I still feel like this when it's born? What if…."

"Are you seriously asking me that question?"

"I think I have to…." she whispered, chewing hard on the inside of her cheek and clutching his hand a little tighter. Begging him wordlessly to stay and try to understand.

"Then I'll answer it seriously."

"El…."

"This is my child, my baby. I don't have even a second's doubt about any of this. I love it same as my other kids already. If you won't do this with me then I'll do it by myself."

"It's not about _won't,_ it's…."

"What'd you want me to say Olivia?" he sighed, breaking their clasped hands and standing up from his chair. Shaking his head reached for his coat and draped it over his arm. "Because I got nothing. I'm all out. I'm all out of words and ways to respond to any of this. You invite me here to get all excited about a baby you casually tell me you don't wanna raise with me? Well, thanks, it's been a real treat. I'm pumped, really."

"Elliot I…."

"First you don't wanna be in a relationship with me. Now I'm raising our kid solo. I'm down, Liv, okay. I'll stay down. You can stop kicking me now."

"Elliot I **do** want to be in…."

"I'm late for my shift I gotta go."

"Please just stay and let me try to…."

By the time the midwife returned to the room Elliot was gone. She finished the necessary checks and balances with a breezy, cheery air that Olivia did her best to respond to the way she was expected to. Then, left alone once more, she sat on the edge of the bed and held the folded envelope that contained their scan photo. Peeling back the corners of the paper she slid the image out, tracing fingertips along what she could clearly make out as the baby's spine, it's head, its face.

Breathing in, breathing out she placed a hand on her stomach and closed her eyes. She tried to imagine what it would be like to hold a tiny infant and to dig deep into herself to find the magic and the maternal instinct that was apparently within her. Hot, angry tears of frustration flooded her eyes when still the only roaring emotion inside of her was terror and dread.

* * *

"Oh come on, you've gotta be kidding me!"

"I am deadly serious!"

"You're a pain in my ass is what you are Stabler…." throwing narrowed eyes over her shoulder Aubrie's voice was warm, teasing, with no sense of real irritation, "… a pain in my ass."

"I aim to please…." he grinned, falling into this easy repartee so easily with her.

It was almost possible, sometimes, to forget he was miserable during the working day. There had definitely been darker moments after the shooting where he had questioned his abilities on the job, as well as in every other sphere of his life, but after a month or two back in the saddle he was confident again. He could do this. He could control this. He could use his experience and long honed skill to help people, to catch the bad guys and to put them behind bars. He could bring the survivors the closure he so badly needed in his own life.

"You want a coffee? Something tells me we're gonna need it on an IV before we head over to the school."

"67 hysterical school girls all nervous of authority? Man I love my job."

"Oh come on you know how this is gonna go. You always make me bad cop. I'll be the one making them cry. You're basically just there to flash them your baby blues till they go all gooey and confess. You're the pretty window dressing who brings tissues."

He smiled to himself, and then at her. He probably held her eyes a little too long. This partnership was different, and sufficiently so that he could detach from the past and compartmentalise. Aubrie was not Olivia. Not in manner, not on the job. She didn't ooze the same natural empathy, she didn't immediately win over victims. She was warm, but she was a slower burn. She was the harder nut in most of their interrogations and she acted head first not heart. She was nothing like Olivia and that was just exactly what he needed right now.

"You're such an asshole."

"Did you want a coffee or not?" she asked, breezing past his desk on the way to the machine.

"Mac…." he said, not thinking a second before grabbing her wrist as she passed to slow her stride.

"Yeah?" she swallowed

Aubrie froze mid movement like an action character in a movie. A little taken aback by his gesture, and even more so by the way he didn't instantly let go. He held her wrist lightly in his palm, and the heat of it made her flush. Something made her flush.

"Sorry, God, what am I….." realising, remembering himself, Elliot shook his head and laughed unnaturally.

"Hey?" she said quietly, reaching to his shoulder and squeezing it reassuringly. "Don't do that; don't go all awkward on me. I'm not, see?"

"Thanks…." he smiled gratefully, feeling strangely breathless. Then, again, acting outside of himself he reached up his hand and placed it over hers on his shoulder. "Literally I was only gonna tell you that I have snacks. I grabbed snacks to get us through the interviews."

"It take it all back…." she grinned, her pale cheeks flushed pink as her green eyes twinkled warmly, "… you're a delight to work with."

"Yeah I am!" he laughed, and as she took back her hand and continued on to the coffee machine he turned and watched her go.

"Liv?"

"Oh, Fin, hey! God you scared me creeping up like that…." she cried, clasping her hand to her chest and stepping back further into the elevator corridor.

"You here to see El?"

"No!" she lied, her heart thundering so hard it was stealing the blood from her brain. She felt dizzy: she felt nauseated.

"So what are you….."

"Fin can I ask you a question? It can't go any further than us. You can't tell him I asked."

"What's going on here?"

"Aubrie Mackenzie."

"Oh Liv…."

"You know this isn't the first time I've stood in the doorway of that squad room watching my partner with someone else. Only when it was Dani Beck it didn't scare the hell out of me like this does….." inhaling slowly, Olivia allowed her eyes to wander back to where Detective Mackenzie was setting a coffee down on Elliot's desk, "…. because he didn't smile like _that_ around her."

"I didn't even know you and El were…."

"We're not."

"I thought the two of you were just friends."

"We are."

"Got it, sure."

"Don't do that, don't laugh at me. Don't make me seem ridiculous."

"Liv do you remember you and Stabler?" he said, because there was no way she didn't based upon her current state.

It was strange because he had gone back and forth so many times on the two of them. At first, seeing the two of them slowly light the touch paper and allow partners to mean something more he had disapproved. It wasn't a good idea, he thought, them being so close. It was dangerous professionally and he didn't trust Stabler not to hurt Olivia. Then seeing them together, seeing how happy he made her he softened, he warmed. After the accident he had become as desperate for Olivia to regain her full memory of her relationship with Elliot as he had, it had seemed like the right thing. Now, once more, he was conflicted. Nothing was clear, no path seemed without pitfalls and he had a strong sense of unease.

"Not all of it."

"But enough that the thought of something happening between him and Mackenzie…."

"I have no right, I know I don't. He's been very clear, we're not together. That's what I wanted. That's what I was so sure I wanted. He tried everything, he tried so desperately to get me to remember everything. He even wanted to just try to continue the relationship without me remembering. It was me that said no. It was me that said I wasn't ready, that I couldn't handle him. I was the one that pushed him away and said that I didn't want to be in a romantic relationship with him."

"Liv that doesn't really change anything given all that's happened and you know it."

"I have no right to be jealous of whatever's going on between the two of them."

"You have every right. You have every right to be jealous, man. You just don't necessarily have the right to go in there all guns blazing, granted, but still. You could talk to him though? Tell him how you feel?"

"No I can't. Not now. Not after…."

"After what?"

"I said some things. At the hospital when we went for the scan."

"Liv I dunno…."

"I'm gonna go now. Don't tell him I was here okay. Please Fin?"

"I really don't think that…."

"Please?"

"Fine, fine I won't say a word. But for the record? I don't know that you sitting on this is the best idea. You don't think he'd kill to know you were jealous of him and Mackenzie? You don't think that's what he's been waiting for this whole time?"

"I don't know. I don't know anything anymore. Everytime I start to think I've reached the surface something shoves me right back under. I need to think. I need to process….." inhaling deeply, holding it in her chest, she gestured a hand to the squad room beyond, "….this."

"Come on, I'll buy you coffee and a donut. You shouldn't be alone right now."


	15. Glass Is Better Stained Anyway

"So you still don't remember anything, huh?"

"No, no not really ….." said Olivia, startling Fin by the speed with which she ordered herself a glass of red alongside his beer, "… it's all still pretty blurry."

"That was a pretty big reaction back there for someone who's still blurry about how she feels about Stabler."

"Was it?" she asked, throwing up a wall so high he could barely peek over it. "I don't think so. Not really. I'm fine."

Fin held his silence a moment and took a slow slurp of his beer when their order arrived. Leaning on the bar he turned a beer mat back and forth between his fingers and debated his next move. It was a complicated board, a lot of players, a lot of moves. He knew whichever one he made next could affect a course of events and he wasn't entirely sure he was ready for that responsibility.

"Dani Beck."

"Who?"

"Don't you dare lie to me Benson….." he growled, his eyes snapping up to grab hers. "We've been through too much for you to spin me that BS and you know that. You remember it. You remember all of it, don't you?"

"No, no I…." she stuttered, sliding her gaze off his and bringing it to rest on the bottles racked behind the bar. She took a sip of her wine and swallowed it down slowly. It warmed the back of her throat.

"How long?" he pushed, making no attempts to hide his anger.

He had been there, he had been right there for her from the start and she hadn't been honest with him. There had been endless discussion in the squad room about the impact of the shooting on Olivia, and on Elliot. He had held his tongue, pushed his own reaction down deep inside. It didn't help anyone to show he was hurting too. Not when everyone relied on him to be the constant, the stoic, the unfaltering one. The one thing he could never stand was dishonesty, however, and especially not from her. He held her to a higher standard and he wasn't about to apologise for that.

"Liv how long have you had your memory back?"

"I haven't got it back. Not all of it. Or at least I don't think I do. I wasn't lying when I said it was blurry. Besides, it turns out it isn't enough to just remember everything."

"But you remember a hell of a lot more than you've told anyone, right?" he didn't care for nuance or splitting hairs. "Hey? Look at me? Look me in the eye and…."

"I'm sorry…." she sighed, and this time for the first time in a long time when she turned to look at him he saw Liv looking back.

"Liv…." he mouthed, caught entirely off guard by the strength of emotion he felt at seeing her behind her eyes again. The lights were on, she was home. "My God…."

"I still have gaps. I still forget things today that I remembered yesterday. It isn't linear. That's what Terri says."

"Terri?"

"Wyatt…." she replied, but seeing that didn't clarify anything for him she added, "… therapist."

"So what does this mean? You remember…."

"I don't have the shooting. I have no clue what happened that day. I don't remember reacting to the weapon and I don't remember anything that happened before or after I lost consciousness. I can't even be sure how far in front of it I can remember either. That's what it's like. That's why I haven't said anything. It's not an exact science."

"But you remember Stabler. You remember _you and_ Stabler?"

"I remember that we were partners and then we were something more. I remember us becoming an affair and I feel the weight of that. I remember being the other woman and hating it, but loving him more. I remember not recognising myself because I no longer cared about what was right or fair or good. I only cared about him, about being with him."

"Jesus."

"I don't remember if I knew I was pregnant before the accident. Maybe that's because I didn't know. Like I said: blurry."

"I'm sorry I went for you earlier. I guess no one can know what this is like. I hadn't realised it would get so messy. I just thought you'd remember everything and everything would be just the same as it was…."

"Yeah, yeah me too…" she laughed grimly, shaking her head.

"You remember the job?"

"Like it was something that happened to someone else. I remember what to do, how to do it. I remember procedures and laws and how many million times I've read a perp their Miranda rights but I, oh, I don't know."

"No, no go on…."

"I've lost the 'why'.

"Why you do the job?"

"I remember my mother. I remember _that_ why."

"Can we talk about another 'why' you showed up to work every day?"

"Nothing has changed there."

"Liv you can't not tell him. He's been tearing himself apart these past few months."

"I will, of course I will. But I'll do it myself in my own way, and in my own time. I mean that Fin…."

"It won't help, you know."

"We went for a scan together. I knew I was wrong not to tell him about the last one and he deserved to be there. He deserves to be there more than I do."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Only that I think I've done enough truth telling where Elliot is concerned this week. I tried to explain to him that I can't get my head around having this baby. Not the birth, but afterward. I can't be a mother right now, I don't have it in me. I can't handle it. I'm barely managing to take care of myself."

"Liv are you saying what I think you are?"

"Elliot says he'll raise it on his own if he has to."

"This is five hundred million shades of wrong Liv."

"Maybe."

"You gotta at least talk to him. By God, Olivia, you owe him that. You owe **yourself** that. Tell him how you feel, tell him _why_ you…."

"You know I think there's some sick part of me that wants him to start something with that new detective."

"Okay now I know for sure we've crossed over. I haven't got a damn clue what planet we're on right now."

"If I didn't know how much I loved him before then seeing him laughing in that squad room….."

"Liv…."

"If she can make him laugh, if she can remind him what normal feels like, hell what happy feels like. Even if it's only for 10 minutes, for a 10 hour shift. I want that for him. She can give him, she can be for him what I can't right now."

* * *

"STOP! POLICE!"

Feet thundering in rhythm side by side Detectives Stabler and Mackenzie attempted to outrun their suspect. They had arrived on scene first, interrupting a cash transaction in the alley beside the apartment block between Dwayne Jarvis and new player they weren't familiar with. When Dwayne had immediately recognised Elliot as a cop he had set off at pace. Mackenzie finished checking that their victim wasn't inside the property before setting off in pursuit behind Stabler. It horrified him that she was soon running alongside him without even having broken a sweat.

"DROP THE GUN!"

"DROP IT!" cautioned Mackenzie, reading Elliot's unspoken queues with ease and making her own gestures in response. They caught the suspect in a pincer movement between a chain link fence and a run of garbage cans.

"Give it up Jarvis, game over."

"Fuck you!" came the indifferent response, as Jarvis thrust his weapon down the front of his pants and began to scale the fence.

"Oh Jesus please no…." gasped Elliot, thumping at his chest with his first and gulping air into his lungs in a bid to recharge.

"Come on Grandpa, eyes on…." yelled Mackenzie, stowing her own gun with an expert click on her belt and throwing herself with not unremarkable force at the railing.

Elliot took one last second to catch his breath, watching the muscles of Aubrie's back flex and as she dragged her body weight up the wall with confident arm strength. In a flash of panic he realised that neither of them were wearing a vest.

"Pissing me off is only gonna make this worse for you in the long run, buddy. Give it up. Stop running."

"Fuck off Red!"

"Okay I'm done being delicate about this…." with one crisp, sharp shot Mackenzie grazed a bullet off the suspect's sneaker and caused him to stumble long enough for her to land herself on him with the full force of herself from behind.

"You fucking bitch! You shot me!"

"I barely broke the skin Princess….." said Aubrie with a toss of her eyes, dropping her concentration just long enough for Jarvis to throw back his elbow and catch her heavily in the jaw. She held him fast, still managing to get him in handcuffs while swallowing mouthfuls of her own blood. "Stabler?"

"I…." came the stumbling, stuttering attempt at words from over her shoulder. Dragging her bare arm across her chin to sweep away the worst of the blood pooling there she squinted against the low winter sun and watched her partner.

"You, asshat, sit there and don't move."

"You really think I'm just gonna…." but any reluctance to comply was winded out of Jarvis as Aubrie hurled him, hands cuffed behind his back, against the chain link fence.

"Try to run and I'll take out your other foot." But seeing the way his face was contorting in pain from her earlier shot she trusted he would stay put.

"Stabler? It's me, it's Aubrie….." where her voice had been the perfect acidic sass she now spoke with a rasping velvet, moving slowly toward Elliot with her hands held slightly out from her body. Palms up, wide, open, inviting his trust. "I want you to feel your feet on the ground, okay? Move your toes, feel the concrete under your shoes."

"I couldn't stop her. She just threw herself in front of me, in front of the bullet."

"Focus on something you can smell. One thing you can smell, Elliot."

"She folded in half like a fucking…."

"One thing you can touch…." with one hand resting gently on his shoulder she reached for his hand, trembling at his side, and held it gently, "… now just breathe in, and breathe out, breathe in…."

"I'm really sorry…." he managed, forcing a hoarse rasp and blinking blue eyes repeatedly as the world started to filter slowly back into focus. Turning his head he looked down at Aubrie, whose high cheek bones and wide green eyes stood to attention. He watched face lift slow, steady smile with only a slight wince in acknowledgement of her bleeding mouth.

"That's it, you're back. You're okay."

"I'm okay…." he nodded, feeling his feet on the ground, smelling her perfume, squeezing her hand, "… thank you."

"Just doing my job, partner."

"Mac, my God, your face…." he realised, fully acknowledging reality and instinctively reaching with his free hand to her jaw. Without touching it he held his fingertips millimetres from her skin and felt his pulse quicken once more. "Are you okay? Is it broken? Your jaw?"

"I think I'd know if it was. I'm pretty sure this is more visual drama than lasting damage…." flushing in a rare moment of self-consciousness she lifted the bottom hem of her shirt and used it to blot at her bleeding lip.

"I _really_ hate to break up this _precious_ moment the two of you are having over there but do any of y'all wanna either arrest me or let me the fuck go?"

* * *

"How you holding up?"

"I'm pretty sure this is gonna get uglier before it gets better. I bruise like a peach and my porcelain Irish skin isn't very forgiving."

"Get this down you, it'll help…." smiled Elliot, sliding into the bar booth beside her and setting a whiskey down in front of her. The ice clinked against the glass as she lifted it to her face, holding it against her throbbing jaw.

"How much do I owe you?"

"Owe me? Mac you saved my ass more than once today. First by outpacing these old bones at least two to one and second…." he hesitated, long enough to take a long sip from his own glass.

"There's no shame in it you know. The shit we see day in day out. I'd be worried if it didn't get under people's skin. Besides, that was personal. What happened to you and Benson? That was about as personal as it gets. There's no shame in feeling it."

"Maybe."

"Did you talk to anyone?" she asked quietly. "After what happened?"

"I wasn't the one that got shot. I was fine, I am fine."

"Yeah…." she said, and she had meant it to fall from her lips neutral and non-judgemental. In reality it raised a smile from him because they both knew he was anything but, and today had been very real evidence of that.

"I had the mandatory psych checks to clear me to return to duty. I sat down with someone, sure. There just wasn't a lot to say. Liv saved me. She put herself between me and the bullet and I walked away no damage done."

"You didn't walk away from this any more than she did. There _was_ damage done…." she said softly, "… wasn't there?"

"She took a bullet to the shoulder and lost her memory."

"You watched your partner get shot and then lose all recollection of who she is. You left your wife and kids, your home, for a woman who forgot why. Forgot she's in love with you. Don't pretend you didn't lose something too. Don't pretend you didn't lose _everything_ that day Stabler."

"Damn it Mac…." he murmured, finishing his drink and gesturing for the bar tender to refresh their glasses, "…. you get under my skin."

"Like a fungus or…." she smirked, rolling an ice cube around her mouth before crunching down hard on it with a glacial crack of teeth. It must've nudged her swollen jaw and she winced slightly. "I can't even imagine what Benson went through, what she's still going through. I just think it was remiss of people to turn a blind eye to how badly this has all royally fucked you in the ass that's all."

"Aubrie!" chocking on the first mouthful of his second drink Elliot sprayed some of it involuntarily across the table.

"Oh you didn't know?" she grinned, white teeth against red lips and her green eyes twinkling. "I cuss like a sailor on leave after a drink and a half. My mother tells me I'm going straight to hell. I tell her I learned from the pros in the pubs of her homeland."

"You visited Ireland a lot then?"

"A few times, and I'm quick study."

"How's your jaw?" he asked, watching her lift her glass and fail to get the glass to sit against the worst of her bruising. He reached out and moved it slightly to the left, laying his hand over hers so naturally, and then finding himself leaving it there. Needing the sensation of skin on skin, needing to feel the warmth of the back of her hand against his palm.

"You know I think I've probably had enough to drink. I'm a total lightweight. A complete and utter betrayal of my Celtic blood."

Her eyes were magnetised on his, she couldn't blink let alone look away. She wasn't drunk, she was lying brazenly. She was one of the best drinkers she knew. She was always the last to leave and could walk a straight line to the door every time. Elliot Stabler was unlike any man she'd known before. He made them all seem like boys. She had caught herself watching him, always just in time to go unseen. The broad line of his shoulders, the veins that raised through the ink of his tattoo when he flexed his forearms, the way his rare smile lit his blue eyes. It unnerved her that she had become a woman who noticed those details.

"You're not drunk."

"I feel it…." she confessed, her usual rasping bar room Jersey accent a barely audible squeak.

"Me too…." he sighed, taking back his hand and leaning over the table. Elbows braced on the edge, Elliot dropped his head into his hands and rubbed at his face exhaustedly. "You know I'd almost forgotten what it feels like."

"Being drink?" she asked, regaining her composure taking a long steadying sip of whiskey before setting her glass back down on the table.

"No, no that's not what I…. ignore me, I'm rambling."

"You _are_ notoriously a man of many words….." she quipped, and lifting his head from his hands Elliot turned to her and began to smile. The smile spread slowly, crept across his cheeks, touched his eyes, and warmed him from the inside out like hot water hitting ice. It gave off steam.

"Mac I really wanna kiss you right now….." gravel voiced, unapologetically self-destructive Elliot rolled his shoulders, "…. on a scale of one to complete and utter asshole where does that put me?"

"Probably about on a par with how badly I want to let you….." she swallowed, and deliberately didn't make any kind of contact with him. They sat apart, him leaning on the table, her sat upright with her body twisted toward his but very much in her own space. "It is a terrible, terrible idea Stabler and you know it."

"I mean they'd never give me a female partner again."

"Not even close to funny. Elliot think it through….." she sighed, raking a handful of curls off her face and holding them on top of her head, "… with your head that is."

"See, you can be funny too…." he was smiling again. Damn it.

"You really wanna put your job on the line along with the rest of your life? You're already fighting fires at home, with Benson, you really wanna start another one?"

"Yeah, yeah I do…." throwing the rest of his drink down the back of his throat Elliot twisted around, his heart beating twice a second then coming to a total halt as he locked her eyes, "… I wanna run straight into the fucking flames."

"I…." she only managed one syllable before his lips crashed onto mouth, hot, hungry, but at the same time soft and yielding and they melted her lips into parting and tasting his tongue. She slid toward him, felt his arms curl around her waist and pull her body closer to his.

"Mac I'm sorry…." murmured Elliot under his breath, as he peeled himself from her and swallowed the golf ball in his throat down hard.

"Don't apologise…." said Aubrie quickly, running her index finger along lips swollen from more than the earlier elbow she'd taken to the jaw, "…I was on the other end of that. I could've stopped it."

"Now what?" he asked, when all other words and actions failed him. He needed someone else to take the wheel.

"Another round?" she offered after a long silence, her head tilted slightly to the side and her eyes wide and kind. She wasn't angry, she wasn't hurt or horrified. He felt his body relax, his muscles unclench.

"I've got nowhere else to be."

"Oh Stabler you flatter me!" she cried, throwing her eyes to the ceiling as he cringed at his misspeak. "Stop it, I've told you before, don't do that, don't pull that face. Don't make it awkward. We sit, we drink, we talk. Tomorrow we go back to work as normal. There's no fire here…."

She reached for his forearm and gave it a squeeze, he nodded and relaxed to a smile because as wrong as it was: it felt right. In that moment everything about sitting there with Aubrie Mackenzie felt good and for the first time in what felt like a lifetime the world stopped spinning, his heart unclenched, and he felt close to happy. She was wrong though, he knew, as her palm remained on his Eagle, Globe and Anchor. There was a fire.

* * *

"I'm sorry I ran out on you at the hospital. I really was late for shift but I should've stayed. We should've talked."

"It's fine Elliot. I dropped another bombshell on you and it was the worst possible timing. Having you sit there watching your child on the ultrasound while I tell you I don't think I can handle raising it with you. That was cruel of me and I'm sorry."

"I'm just glad you're finally being honest with me. I'm just glad we're finally talking, even if it's hard."

"And it is hard, isn't it?" she swallowed, managing a weak smile. He mirrored it, the corners of his mouth twisting sadly.

"I keep thinking it might finally start to get easier and…."

"What was it you said? You're already down? I can stop kicking you now?"

He sighed, heavily, and wondered yet again how things had ever come to this. Sat together in her living room once more, a few inches away from one another on the couch, they continued to swim through the treacle. Folding his hands into his lap he took a moment to compose himself before answering.

"I've said a lot of things I shouldn't have these past few months."

"We both have."

"Yeah, well, with good cause. There's no playbook for any of this. It's a miracle you're still standing after what you've been through. I don't judge you for having doubts. When Kathy was pregnant with Maureen I wanted to run far, run fast and not look back. I was terrified. I wasn't ready to be a father, I didn't even know what that meant. I'd not exactly had the finest example set."

"Is this where you tell me that no one is ever ready to be a parent and that it'll all fall into place when the baby's born?"

"I…."

"It's bigger than that Elliot. It runs deeper. I don't think it can be fixed by tiny fingers and toes and some kind of post-partum epiphany. I'm a lone wolf, I've been alone my whole life..."

" _Liv what is it? Tell me?"_

" _I've been alone my whole life. Sorry I'm whining….."_

" _You're not. Family's everything."_

"Elliot?"

"Sorry, I just….." he stumbled, shaking his head in an attempt to free himself of the memory from another place and time.

"I remember my mother. I remember everything about my mother….." she said, and the hairs at the nape of Elliot's neck prickled, "… and _nothing_ about that makes me want to be one."

"Oh Liv…." he sighed, forgetting himself, forgetting everything that had happened and reverting only to instinct and muscle memory. He reached across the space between them and grabbed her, dragged her into his arms and held her tight.

"Elliot I wish I could do this for you….." she whispered, burying her face in his chest and then bringing her chin to rest on his shoulder. Staring into the distance behind him she blinked back tears. "I'm so sorry for how badly all of this has hurt you. How badly it's still hurting you."

"I'm fine, I'm alright….." he said, his voice warm and genuine as he pulled away from her and held her at arm's length to add, "… don't worry about me!"

"But I do…." she said, deliberately extracting herself from the embrace before she complicated things any further, "… I always have."

"You're remembering, aren't you?" he said, catching her a little off guard. He could leaf through her pages, thumbed and soft, a book he had read a million times and could quote by heart.

"I'm starting to feel a little more myself." She said, being as honest as she possible could with him without fully understanding herself. "And it hurts."

"Talk to me?" he implored, his blue eyes wide. Listening.

"I feel like I'm going to explode. That's not my being dramatic, that isn't hyperbole. I feel like a giant weight is on my chest, crushing me, and sometimes my heart beats so fast it hurts, it physically hurts to keep breathing in and out at the same time. I can hear it in my ears. It makes me dizzy. I don't just _remember_ it all…." sinking the remainder of her wine and gesturing to the bar tender to bring her another Olivia whispered with hoarse misery, "… I'm **reliving** it."

"Oh Liv…." he breathed, putting his arm back around her, resting his forehead on her shoulder. Her pain was his pain. When she hurt, he hurt. That was how close they were, that was how twisted together, how interlaced their souls had become.

"All the time, every day, every night. It's not just a picture, a video memory it's alive. I smell it, I feel it. All the hurt and pain and joy and whatever the hell else. I've never taken drugs but I can only imagine. A million emotions all flying around at once. I feel like I'm on fire and I want to crawl out of my own skin to just make it stop. Just for five minutes. It is exhausting and my head and my heart are complete wrecks. It's carnage in there, it's ugly and messy and I am drowning. I tried so hard to remember, to get my memories back and now I'm drowning in them."

"I don't know what to say. I don't have any words, Liv."

"I know."

"I'm just gonna….." he began, then gave up and instead took action. He drew her back into his arms and hugged her close, nuzzling his face into the warm, soft skin of her neck and planting kisses there.

"Thank you…." she whispered.

"I'm here, sweetheart….." he didn't call her that, he never called her that that she could remember. It sounded sweet, tender, the word felt precious as it fell from his usually terse lips and danced into her ears. She smiled.

"El I'm so ashamed that I don't feel the way I'm should to about this pregnancy. I'm so sorry that I'm ruining all the joy and excitement…."

"Liv shut up you're not ruining anything. And there's no right or wrong way to feel, there's no supposed to about any of this. Just promise you'll keep talking to me, okay? Just because we're not together doesn't mean we're not together in this. Like I've told you before, I'm here, I'm here for you. There's nothing you can say that will change that. So I wanna hear it, whatever is going on for you. No matter how ugly or scary or impossible it feel you can't scare me off…." lifting the corners of his mouth to a little smile Elliot vowed, "… you're stuck with me, partner. You are **not** alone."

* * *

"She doesn't want to be a mother. She says she doesn't want to raise this baby. But I do: so I will. On my own if I have to."

"And you're okay with that?" asked Fin, clunking open a can of cola with a loud fizz. Elliot sat at the desk opposite him and furrowed his brow.

"What? No, no of course not. I'm not okay with any of this Fin but so far I've had zero choice in any of it. I'm just throwing on band aids and hoping none of us bleed out before all of this mess starts to get better. At this point I'm not even sure it will."

"Is that what you're doing with Mackenzie?" despite Elliot throwing him a warning glower Fin pushed, "She a band aid?"

"She's my partner. She's become a friend, that's all."

"Bullshit."

"You know what? You're an asshole Tutuola."

"I'm not wrong though, am I?" he challenged, and Elliot deliberately kept his eyes fixed on his computer screen. "Look, man, I'm not here to give you grief. It's no business of mine except that I've come to believe lately that you're okay. You're alright Stabler, and I don't wanna see you make a big mistake. I don't want you to screw this up."

"Sure, sure because my life has been so damn great lately I wouldn't wanna mess it up. Wouldn't wanna do anything to jeopardise living alone in an empty apartment, my family barely talking to me, Liv not wanting to be with me, not wanting to raise our kid together. Fin there's nothing _left_ to screw up."

"So that's what this is? You're in self-destruct mode?" scoffed Fin with a toss of his eyes.

"I'm in survival mode and you can judge all you want but I'm doing the best that I can."

"I'm not judging you, man….." sighed Fin, realising that he wasn't entirely sure he would be doing anything so very differently in Elliot's situation. "I'm sorry, okay? I apologise if I came over that way. I only wanna help. You _and_ Liv."

"There's time for her to have second thoughts about the baby. Three months till she's due and a lot can change. Look how much has changed in the last three months, right?"

"Right. And do you think she will? Change her mind?" said Fin, thinking of more than the baby. He wished he could tell Elliot what he knew: that she had already had a change of heart even if it wasn't about the baby.

"Maybe if she feels supported enough. Maybe if I can show her that she's not on her own, that we're in it together. I've done this before and I know it's scary, kids are: they're damn terrifying. I just think sometimes the thought of something, the anticipation of something is worse than the reality."

"And if she doesn't come around to the idea of being a mom?"

"You know Fin lately I've come to realise it doesn't do any good to waste time and energy thinking about what ifs. I've learned that you can't plan ahead further than tomorrow in any of this. So that's all I'm doing. Taking one day at a time, putting one foot in front of the other."

"Survival mode, right. You know Elliot this isn't all on you. I know you think it is. I know you're desperate for Liv to be back the way she was but it's not your job to fix her. You can't take this all on by yourself. We're here too, okay? Cragen is on side, Munch and Casey are here, and I'll do anything I can."

"Thanks, really, I know we've not always seen eye to eye. I appreciate it."

"I'm not judging you Stabler but just be careful, okay? Mackenzie seems like one of the good ones. Just make sure you know what you're doing dragging her into all this."

"Mac doesn't get dragged anywhere she doesn't wanna be Fin. I've been completely honest with her from the start. She knows the score."

"You sleeping with her?"

"No!" cried Elliot indignantly, but his gut twisted slightly in acknowledgement that the temptation had crossed his path.

"You wanna go grab a beer?" asked Fin, feeling that he had done all he could both professionally and personally for one day. "This soda just ain't really cutting it."

"Sure, sure give me five to wrap this up and I'm with you."


End file.
